trangely awake and alert and surrounded the woman with a sort of blind,
hushed stare. One solitary patch of light peered like a weary eye from
that side of the street which lay in shadow, and Chris, passing through
the unbolted cottage door, walked up the narrow passage within and
softly entered.

Condolence and tears and buzz of sorrowful friends had passed away with
the stroke of midnight. Now Mrs. Hicks sat alone with her dead and gazed
upon his calm features and vaguely wondered how, after a life of such
disappointment and failure and bitter discontent, he could look so
peaceful. She knew every line that thought and trouble had ruled upon
his face; she remembered their coming; and now, between her fits of
grief, she scanned him close and saw that Death had wiped away the
furrows here and there, and smoothed his forehead and rolled back the
years from off him until his face reminded her of the strange, wayward
child who was wont to live a life apart from his fellows, like some wild
wood creature, and who had passed almost friendless through his boyhood.
Fully he had filled her widowed life, and been at least a loving child,
a good son. On him her withered hopes had depended, and, even in their
darkest hours, he had laughed at her dread of the workhouse, and assured
her that while head and hands remained to him she need not fear, but
should enjoy the independence of a home. Now this sole prop and stay was
gone--gone, just as the black cloud had broken and Fate relented.

The old woman sat beside him stricken, shrivelled, almost reptilian in
her red-eyed, motionless misery. Only her eyes moved in her wrinkled,
brown face, and reflected the candle standing on the mantelpiece above
his head. She sat with her hands crooked over one another in her lap,
like some image wrought of ebony and dark oak. Once a large house-spider
suddenly and silently appeared upon the sheet that covered the breast of
the dead. It flashed along for a foot or two, then sat motionless; and
she, whose inclination was to loathe such things unutterably, put forth
her hand and caught it without a tremor and crushed it while its hairy
legs wriggled between her fingers.

To the robbed mother came Chris, silent as a ghost. Only the old woman's
eyes moved as the girl entered, fell down by the bier, and buried her
face in the pillow that supported her lover's head. Thus, in profound
silence, both remained awhile, until Chris lifted herself and looked in