Coventry. Now I think you were in my son's
confidence; can you tell me whether there was any quarrel between him
and Miss Carden before he left us?"

"Well, madam, I didn't see so much of him lately, he was always at the
other works. Would to heaven he had never seen them! But I don't believe
he ever gave that lady an unkind word. He was not that sort. He was
ready of his hand against a man, but a very lamb with women he was. And
so she is going to marry? Well, well; the world, it must go round. She
loved him dearly, too. She was down at Bolt and Little's works day after
day searching for him. She spent money like water, poor thing! I have
seen her with her white face and great eyes watching the men drag the
river for him; and, when that horrible thing was found at last, they say
she was on the bridge and swooned dead away, and lay at death's door.
But you will know all this, madam; and it is sad for me to speak of, let
alone you that are his mother."

The color died out of Mrs. Little's cheek as he spoke; but, catching now
a glimpse of the truth, she drew Bayne on with terrible cunning, and so
learned that there had been a tremendous explosion, and Jael Dence taken
up for dead; and that, some time after, an arm and a hand had been found
in the river and recognized for the remains of Henry Little.

When she had got this out of the unwary Bayne she uttered a piercing
scream, and her head hung over the chair, and her limbs writhed, and the
whole creature seemed to wither up.

Then Bayne saw with dismay what he had done, and began to falter out
expressions of regret. She paid no attention.

He begged her to let him fetch her some salts or a cordial.

She shook her head and lay weak as water and white as a sheet.

At last she rose, and, supporting herself for a moment by the back of
the chair, she said, "you will take me to see my son's remains."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, don't think of it!"

"I must; I cannot keep away from them an instant. And how else can
I know they are his? Do you think I will believe any eye but my own?
Come."

He had no power to disobey her. He trembled in every limb at what was
coming, but he handed her into her carriage, and went with her to the
Town Hall.

When they brought her the tweed sleeves, she trembled like an aspen
leaf. When they brought her the glass receptacle, she seized Bayne by
the shoulder and turned her head away. By degrees she looked round, and
seemed to stiffen all o