. To Barbara his
mind was as an open book and she read what was passing there. What she
saw were such thoughts as these: "My only comfort, and yet till within
two years ago, whatever else I did, I never touched drink. I swore to my
mother that I never would, and had she been alive to-day----. But Bess
always liked her glass, and drinking alone is no company. Ah! if my
mother had lived everything would have been different, for I outgrew the
bad fit and might have become quite a decent fellow. But then I met Bess
again by chance, and she had the old hold on me, and there was none to
keep me back, and she knew how to play her fish until I married her. The
old aunt never found it out. If she had I shouldn't have 8,000 pounds a
year to-day. I lied to her about that, and I wonder what she thinks
of me now, if she can think where she is gone. I wonder what my mother
thinks also, and my father, who was a good man by all accounts, though
nobody seems to remember much about him. Supposing that they could see
me now, supposing that they could have been at that supper party and
witnessed the conjugal interview between me and the female creature who
is my legal wife, what would they think? Well, they are dead and can't,
for the dead don't come back. The dead are just a few double handfuls of
dirt, no more, and since no doubt I shall join them before very long, I
thank God for it, or rather I would if there were a God to thank. Here's
to the company of the Dead who will never hear or see or feel anything
more from everlasting to everlasting. Amen."

Then he drank off the second half tumbler of brandy, hid his face in his
hands and began to sob, muttering:

"Mother, why did you leave me? Oh, mother, come back to me, mother, and
save my soul from hell!"

Barbara and Anthony awoke from their dream of the dreadful earth and
looked into each other's hearts.

"It is true," said their hearts, which could not lie, and with those
words all the glory of their state faded to a grey nothingness.

"You have seen and heard," said Barbara. "It was my sin which has
brought this misery on our son, who, had I lived on, might have been
saved. Now through me he is lost, who step by step of his own will must
travel downwards to the last depth, and thence, perhaps, never be raised
again. This is the thing that I have done, yes, I whom blind judges in
the world held to be good."

"I have seen and heard," he answered, "and joy has departed from me