e long interminable day was over, and a new morning had
begun. He rose, listening to the echoes of the bell, and--as the tide of
feeling surged back upon him--passionately commending the new-born day
to God.

Then he turned towards the house, put the light out in the drawing-room,
and went upstairs, stepping cautiously. He opened the door of
Catherine's room. The moonlight was streaming in through the white
blinds. Catherine, who had undressed, was lying now with her face hidden
in the pillow, and one white-sleeved arm flung across little Mary's cot.
The night was hot, and the child would evidently have thrown off all its
coverings had it not been for the mother's hand, which lay lightly on
the tiny shoulder, keeping one thin blanket in its place.

'Catherine,' he whispered, standing beside her.

She turned, and by the light of the candle he held shaded from her he
saw the austere remoteness of her look, as of one who had been going
through deep waters of misery, alone with God. His heart sank. For the
first time that look seemed to exclude him from her inmost life.

He sank down beside her, took the hand lying on the child, and laid down
his head upon it, mutely kissing it. But he said nothing. Of what
further avail could words be just then to either of them? Only he felt
through every fibre the coldness, the irresponsiveness of those fingers
lying in his.

'Would it prevent your sleeping,' he asked her presently, 'if I came to
read here, as I used to when you were ill? I could shade the light from
you, of course.'

She raised her head suddenly.

'But you--you ought to sleep.'

Her tone was anxious, but strangely quiet and aloof.

'Impossible!' he said, pressing his hand over his eyes as he rose. 'At
any rate I will read first.'

His sleeplessness at any time of excitement or strain was so inveterate,
and so familiar to them both by now, that she could say nothing. She
turned away with a long sobbing breath, which seemed to go through her
from head to foot. He stood a moment beside her, fighting strong
impulses of remorse and passion, and ultimately maintaining silence and
self-control.

In another minute or two he was sitting beside her feet, in a low chair
drawn to the edge of the bed, the light arranged so as to reach his book
without touching either mother or child. He had run over the book-shelf
in his own room, shrinking painfully from any of his common religious
favourites as one shrinks from touch