this simple decision of his was to be the struggle for
life and death with him, his cold, firm face told nothing of it. Let us
be just to him, stand by him, if we can, in the midst of his desolate
home and desolate life, and look through his cold, sorrowful eyes at
the deed he was going to do. Dreary enough he looked, going through the
great mill, despite the power in his quiet face. A man who had strength
to be alone; yet, I think, with all his strength and power, his mother
could not have borne to look back from the dead that day, to see her boy
so utterly alone. The day was the crisis of his life, looked forward to
for years; he held in his hand a sure passport to fortune. Yet he thrust
the hour off, perversely, trifling with idle fancies, pushing from him
the one question which all the years past and to come had left for this
day to decide.

Some such idle fancy it may have been that made the man turn from the
usual way down a narrow passage into which opened doors from small
offices. Margaret Howth, he had learned to-day, was in the first one. He
hesitated before he did it, his sallow face turning a trifle paler; then
he went on in his hard, grave way, wondering dimly if she remembered his
step, if she cared to see him now. She used to know it,--she was the
only one in the world who ever had cared to know it,--silly child!
Doubtless she was wiser now. He remembered he used to think, that, when
this woman loved, it would be as he himself would love, with a simple
trust which the wrong of years could not touch. And once he had
thought--Well, well, he was mistaken. Poor Margaret! Better as it was.
They were nothing to each other. She had put him from her, and he had
suffered himself to be put away. Why, he would have given up every
prospect of life, if he had done otherwise! Yet he wondered bitterly if
she had thought him selfish,--if she thought it was money he cared for,
as the others did. It mattered nothing what they thought, but it wounded
him intolerably that she should wrong him. Yet, with all this, whenever
he looked forward to death, it was with the certainty that he should
find her there beyond. There would be no secrets then; she would know
then how he had loved her always. Loved her? Yes; he need not hide it
from himself, surely.

He was now by the door of the office;--she was within. Little Margaret,
poor little Margaret! struggling there day after day for the old father
and mother. What a pale, cold lit