me?"

It seemed to Paul at that moment as though the foundations of his life
were broken up.

"Oh, God, I thank Thee!" he cried, "Oh, Mary, Mary! My love!" And
again he strained the young girl to his heart.

For many days Paul Stepaside's mother lay sleeping calmly in the room
where sickness had confined her. Her face was tranquil, the lines
which had been so deep a few weeks before had passed away. She had
been unconscious ever since the day on which Mary had made known to her
the terrible suspicion which filled her mind. Sometimes there had come
to her minutes when the past became partially real, but those minutes
were only as dream phantoms. She knew nothing of what had taken place,
did not seem to realise that Mary Bolitho had been in the house with
her, or that the man to whom she had given her heart long years before
slept beneath the same roof. She knew nothing either of the agony
through which they had passed or of their feverish endeavours to save
her son. She suffered no pain. She simply lay there as though nothing
mattered and as though the windows of her mind had been closed.

The nurse sat by her bedside watching her. The doctor had been that
morning, and had remarked that he saw no change either one way or the
other.

"I have seldom seen anything like it, nurse!" he had said.
"Physically, she seems to be improving. Her pulse is quite
satisfactory; she has no temperature; and her strength is well
maintained. But I do not understand this long condition of coma. I
wonder how it will end!"

The nurse, as she sat by the patient's bedside, was thinking of what
the doctor had said, and was curiously watching her face.

The woman's eyes opened, and the nurse thought she saw the light of
reason in them. She looked curiously around the room.

"Who are you?" she said.

"I'm a nurse from the hospital, Mrs. Stepaside. You haven't been very
well."

"Ay, I remember being poorly. Where's Paul?"

"He's not come back yet," said the nurse.

"What do you mean? Ay, but he's near! Don't you hear them shouting?"

In spite of the fact that she still believed her patient to be
unconscious, she listened, and thought she heard distant shouting.

"I know, I know! It's Paul coming home! He's cleared himself. Do you
see? He's proved himself innocent! I knew he would! My own clever
boy! There! There!"

Again the nurse listened, and this time she knew that something was
taking place. It s