lutely necessary; and the
day before her baby was born, Nea, weeping bitterly, took her last
relic, her mother's portrait, from the locket set with pearls from her
neck, and asked Maurice to sell the little ornament.

All through that long illness, though Heaven only knows how, Maurice
struggled on.

Ill himself, he nursed his sick wife with patient care and tenderness.

Nea and her little ones had always plenty of nourishing food, though
he himself often went without the comforts he needed; he kept the
children quiet, he did all and more than all a woman would have done,
before, worn out at last in body and mind, he laid himself down, never
to rise again.

And Nea, going to him with her sickly baby in her arms, saw a look on
his face that terrified her, and knelt down by his side, while he told
her between his paroxysms of coughing what little there was to tell.

She knew it all now; she knew the poor, brave heart had been slowly
breaking for years, and had given way at last; she knew what he had
suffered to see the woman he loved dragged down to the level of his
poverty, and made to endure such bitterness of humiliation; she knew,
when it was too late, that the man was crushed under the consequences
of his weakness, that his remorse was killing him; and that he would
seal his repentance with his life. And then came from his pale lips a
whispered entreaty that Nea shuddered to hear.

"Dearest," he had said, when she had implored him to say what she
could do to comfort him, "there is one thing; go to your father. Yes,
my darling," as she shivered at his words, "go to him yourself; let
him see your dear face that has grown so thin and pale; perhaps he
will see for himself, and have pity. Tell him I am dying, and that I
can not die in peace until he has promised to forgive you, and take
care of you and the children. You will do this for me, Nea, will you
not? You know how I have suffered, and will not refuse me."

Had she ever refused him anything? Nea kissed the drawn pallid face
without a word, tied on her shabby bonnet, and took her baby in her
arms--it was a puny, sickly creature, and wailed incessantly, and she
could not leave it--then with tears blinding her poor eyes, she walked
rapidly through the dark streets, hardly feeling the cutting wind, and
quite unconscious of the driving sleet that pelted her face with icy
particles.

For her heart felt like a stone; Maurice was dying; but no! he should
not die: