ing.

He came back to her with a smile and a dry coat, saying, "Dear mother,
you keep all the same upstairs. There isn't pin nor paper moved since I
left my room."

"Of course I keep all the same. I would feel very lonely if I hadn't thy
room and Harry's to look into. They are not always empty. Sometimes I
feel as if you might be there, and Oh but I am happy, when I do so! I
just say a 'good morning' or a 'good night' and shut the door. It is a
queer thing, John."

"What is queer, mother?"

"That feeling of 'presence.' But whatever brings thee here at this time
of night? and it raining, too, as if there was an ark to float!"

"Well, mother, there is in a way. I am in trouble."

"I was fearing it."

"Why?"

"I heard tell that Jane was at Harlow. What is she doing there, my
dear?"

"Dr. Sewell told me something about Jane."

"Oh! He told you at last, did he! He ought to have told you long ago."

"Has he known it a long time?"

"He has--if he knows anything."

"And you--mother?"

"I was not sure as long as he kept quiet, and hummed and ha'ed about it.
But I said enough to Jane on two occasions to let her know I suspected
treachery both to her own life and soul and to thee."

"And to my unborn children, mother."

"To be sure. It is a sin and a shame, both ways. It is that! The last
time she was here, she told me as a bit of news, that Mary Fairfax had
died that morning of cancer, and I said, 'Not she. She killed herself.'
Then Jane said, 'You are mistaken, mother, she died of cancer.' I
replied a bit hotly, 'She gave herself cancer. I have no doubt of that,
and so she died as she deserved to die.' And when Jane said, 'No one
could give herself cancer,' I told her plain and square that she did it
by refusing the children God sent her to bear and to bring up for Him,
taking as a result the pangs of cancer. She knew very well what I
meant."

"What did she say?"

"Not a word. She was too angry to speak wisely and wise enough not to
speak at all."

"Well, mother?"

"I said much more of the same kind. I told her that no one ever abused
Nature and got off scot-free. _'Why-a!'_ I said, 'it is thus and so in
the simplest matters. If you or I eat too much we have a sick headache
or dyspepsia. If you dance or ride too much your heart suffers, and you
know what happened to Abram Bowles with drinking too much. It is much
worse,' I went on, 'if a tie is broken it is death to one or the other
or both, especial