r threat it may be that Ishmael will be given strength to withstand
the horror of what you tell him, and that the Lord has a comfort for him
in ways you could not understand, so that you will be robbed of all but
an empty victory...."

As Ishmael slowly and with meticulous care put the letters safely on to
the bed a step was heard coming along the passage, the step of Nicky,
the only step in that house which was both that of a man and vigorous.
Archelaus turned his head a little on the pillow, and Ishmael, for the
first time showing any emotion, leant towards him. "If you say a word to
him--" he began. The steps paused at the door and then went on again.
Ishmael stayed bent forward, eyes sidelong. Archelaus began to speak, as
though his mind had drifted backwards from the acuteness of the present.

"All these years ..." he muttered, "all these years ... wandering auver
the earth, I've thought on it.... Phoebe, she was a light woman and
many was the time I'd held her lil' body to mine, but she was soft as a
lil' lamb fresh from its mother, so she was.... The likes of you wants
too much from a woman; I was never one of they chaps. If a woman was
lil' and soft, said I--"

"Archelaus," said Ishmael, speaking very distinctly and bending over the
old man to try and attract his wandering attention, "when you came back
from California, had you it in your mind to do this thing?"

He had to repeat the question, and at last Archelaus showed a gleam of
knowledge. "When I came back from Californy ..." he murmured, "I came
back, so I ded.... No, I'd forgot all about her then, sure enough; she
was but a soft lil' thing. But he'd got her, him as had taken all of
mine, got the wench as had been mine, that I might ha' wanted again, and
I was mad as fire. And then I was glad of it, for I saw my way, if so be
as I could only get a cheild by her...." He turned a little on his
pillows towards Ishmael and became confidential. "That was my fear," he
went on, "that I'd go wi' her again and no cheild 'ud come any more than
it had afore. But there's often a change in women after a few years, and
besides ... I'd not wanted to get 'en afore. I knew I'd get 'en that
time, and I ded. She was some whisht, she was, weth you and your fine
gentleman ways of not sleeping along o' she, when she found the way she
was in...." He laughed, a tiny, little old thread-like laugh, as out of
the trough of the years there floated up to him Phoebe's predicament
an