with her own hands she would hold back her beloved from the
entrance to the dark valley; she would minister to his fainting soul
the cordial of a tardy forgiveness, though she should be forced to
grovel for it at her father's feet. And then all at once she suddenly
stopped, and found she was clinging, panting for breath, to some area
railings, that the baby was crying miserably on her bosom, and that
she was looking through the open door into her father's hall.

There was a carriage standing there, and a footman was shivering as he
walked up and down the pavement. No one took notice of the
beggar-woman as they thought her, and Nea, moved by a strange impulse
and desire for warmth and comfort, crept a few steps nearer and looked
in.

There was a boy in a velvet tunic sliding up and down the gilded
balustrades; and a tall woman with dark hair, and a diamond cross on
her white neck, swept through the hall in her velvet dress and rebuked
him. The boy laughed merrily and went a few steps higher.

"Beatrice and the young Erle Huntingdon," said Nea to herself. And
then a tall thin shadow fell across the door-way, and, uttering a
half-stifled cry, Nea saw her father, saw his changed face, his gray
hair and bowed figure, before she threw herself in his way.

And so, under the gas-light, with servants watching them curiously,
Mr. Huntingdon and his daughter met again. One who stood near him says
an awful pallor, like the pallor of death, came over his face for an
instant when he saw her standing before him with her baby in her arms,
but in the next he would have moved on had she not caught him by the
arm.

"Father," she sobbed; "father, come with me. Maurice is dying. My
husband is dying; but he says he can not die until he has your
forgiveness. Come home with me; come home with your own Nea, father;"
but he shook off her grasp, and began to descend the steps.

"Here, Stephen," he said, taking some gold from his pocket; "give this
to the woman and send her away. Come, Beatrice, I am ready."

Merciful Heaven! had this man a human heart, that he should disown his
own flesh and blood? Would it have been wonderful if she had spoken
bitter scathing words to the unnatural parent who was driving her from
his door? But Nea never spoke, she only turned away with a shudder
from the sight of the proffered gold, and then drawing her thin cloak
still closer round her child, turned wearily away.

True, she had sinned; but her punishm