is empty; I
must get some more cigars."

I fancied that she was unwilling to leave us together. She lingered a
few minutes, then went out. Then simple, honest Lance turned to me with
his face full of animation.

"John, did you ever see such a tender-hearted woman in all your life?
She is almost too sensitive."

My suspicions were certainties now, and my mind was more than ever
tossed and whirled in tortured doubt and dread. I shall never forget one
evening that came soon afterwards. We went to dine with a friend of
Lance's, a Squire Peyton, who lived not far away, and he was the
possessor of some very fine pictures, of which he was very proud. He
took us through his pretty arranged gallery.

"This is my last purchase," he said.

We all three stopped to look at a large square picture representing the
mother of the little Moses placing his cradle of rushes amongst the tall
reeds in the water.

I saw Mrs. Fleming look at it with eyes that were wet with tears.

"Does it sadden you?" asked Lance. "It need not; the little one looks
young and tender to be left alone, but the water is silent and the
mother is near. She never left him. What a pretty story of mother-love
it is."

The beautiful face paled, the lips trembled slightly.

"It is a beautiful picture," she said, "to come from that land of
darkness; it makes something of the poetry of the Nile."

Watching her, I said to myself, "That woman has not deadened her
conscience; she has tried and failed. There is more good than evil in
her."

All night long there sounded in my ears those words, "A life for a
life!" And I wondered what would, what could, be the punishment of a
mother who took the life of her own child?

CHAPTER X.

This state of things could not last. A shade of fear or mistrust came in
her manner to me. I must repeat, even at the risk of being wearisome,
that I think no man was ever in such a painful position. Had it not been
for my fore-knowledge, I should have loved Mrs. Fleming for her beauty,
her goodness and her devotion to my dear old friend. I could not bear to
tell him the truth, nor could I bear that he should be so basely and
terribly deceived--that he should be living with and loving one whom I
knew to be a murderess. So I waited for an opportunity of appealing to
herself, and it came sooner than I had expected.

One afternoon Lance had to leave us on business; he said he might be
absent some few hours--he was going to Vale