whole worst truth, but he needed to labour
for breath before he could say with a catch: 'I meant to--for one
moment.'

To see a dear face stricken so! Do the damned fare worse? More dreadful
than any reproach was her turning away with wrung hands. She returned to
question.

'Then where is he?'

'I cannot tell. He left me. He would not--he was afraid.'

'What had you done? You had harmed him?'

'Yes,' he said, and told how.

'What had he done to anger you? Had he struck first?'

'No.'

'You had quarrelled?'

'No.'

'Had you no excuse?' she said.

He hesitated. Could she know and understand all, there might be some pity
with her condemnation, there would be some tempering of her distress.

'I can make none,' he had to answer.

When next she spoke: 'Then it was old hate,' she said, and after a minute
he answered 'Yes' to that.

So she had to realise that for months, according to her gospel, he had
been a murderer at heart; and her assurance of a merciful blank of mind
and memory tottered, threatening a downfall that would prove the dear son
of her hope of a rotten build. She tested his memory.

'I asked a promise of you once, and you gave it.'

'Yes,' he said, and, do what he would, 'I have broken it' got mangled
wretchedly in his throat.

'Your promise! Is it believable? You could--you!'

'O mother! If God forgot me!'

Her heart smote her because her prayers had deserted him then.

'Oh, peace!' she said, 'and do not add blasphemy, nor seek to juggle with
God.'

She did not spare him, and deeply she searched his conscience.
Self-convicted already he was, yet his guilt looked freshly hideous
worded by her, as look wounds, known to the senses of night, discovered
by the eye of day.

For a whole dreadful hour Rhoda listened to the murmur of voices. Then
they ceased, and Lois came. 'Thank God, child!' was all she needed to
say.

'Heaven forgive me! Can you? can he? Let me go to him--I must. Ah
me!--can he forgive me?'

Lois held the door and turned her. 'He has nothing to forgive,' she said,
and her face frightened questions.

From among some poor hoards Lois drew out a tiny cross of gold. It was
Christian's, sole relic left of his young unknown life. As a little lad
he had played with it and lost it, and Lois finding it had taken it into
keeping. Now she took it to him.

'I will ask no renewal of a broken promise--no. I want no hard thing of
you, only this: when temptation to deadly sin i