e was not in heaven, and that the sins of
the fathers--Oh, my darling, my darling!"

With a shrill cry she stopped, turned to the bed, threw her outspread
arms about the child, and kissed it fervently.

The tears came at length, and rained down on that little silent face.
Hugh Ritson could support the strain no longer.

"Mercy," he said, and his voice had a deep tremor--"Mercy, if there is
any sin, it is mine, and if there is to be any punishment hereafter,
that will be mine too. As for your little boy, be sure he is in heaven."
He had stepped to the door, and his thumb was on the wooden latch. "You
say rightly, we shall never meet again," he said in a muffled voice.
"Good-bye."

Mercy lifted her tearful face. "Give me your hand at parting," she said
in an imploring tone. He was on the opposite side of the bed from where
she stood, and she reached her hand across it. He took a step nearer,
and his hand closed in hers. Between them and beneath their clasped
hands lay the child. "Hugh, we could not love in this world--something
went astray with us; but we shall meet again, shall we not?"

He turned his eyes away.

"Perhaps," he answered.

"Promise me," she said--"promise me."

He drew his breath hard.

"If there is a God and a judgment, be sure we shall meet," he said.

His voice broke. He turned abruptly aside and hurried out of the house.

CHAPTER XI.

The night was now dark; there was no moon, and there were no stars; the
wind soughed mournfully through the trees. In the occasional lull the
rumble of the cataracts drifted heavily through the air.

Hugh Ritson walked in the darkness with drooping head. He was not making
for the pit-brow; he had taken the opposite direction. When he reached
the village, he stopped at the Flying Horse. Loud peals of laughter came
from the parlor, hidden by red blinds from the road.

He stood at the door that opened into the bar. The landlady, her face
turned from him, was talking with obvious animation to a daleswoman who
stood with a jug in her hand at the other side of the counter.

"What, woman, thoo's surely heard what happen't at the Ghyll this
morning?"

"Nay, Bessie, I's been thrang as Throp wife, cleaning and tittivating."

"Well, lass, they've telt me as it were shocking. Two brothers, and such
a fratch! It coom't to blows at last, and they do say 'at Master Hugh is
nigh amaist dead with a bash the girt fellow gave him."

Hugh Ritson rapped sharply a