out me."

"And I may come?"

"Yes," she whispered.

[Illustration: Headpiece to _Renunciation_]

_RENUNCIATION_

After that the curate came often to the room in the Box Street
tenement; but beyond the tenants of top floor rear he did not allow the
intimacy to extend--not even to embrace the quaintly love-lorn Mr.
Poddle. It was now summer; the window was open to the west wind,
blowing in from the sea. Most the curate came at evening, when the
breeze was cool and clean, and the lights began to twinkle in the
gathering shadows: then to sit at the window, describing unrealities,
not conceived in the world of the listeners; and these new and
beautiful thoughts, melodiously voiced in the twilight, filled the
hours with wonder and strange delight. Sometimes, the boy sang--his
mother, too, and the curate: a harmony of tender voices, lifted softly.
And once, when the songs were all sung, and the boy had slipped away to
the comfort of Mr. Poddle, who was now ill abed with his restless
lungs, the curate turned resolutely to the woman.

"I want the boy's voice," he said.

She gave no sign of agitation. "His voice?" she asked, quietly.
"Ain't the boy's _self_ nothing to your church?"

"Not," he answered, "to the church."

"Not to you?"

"It is very much," he said, gravely, "to me."

"Well?"

He lifted his eyebrows--in amazed comprehension. "I must say, then,"
he said, bending eagerly towards her, "that I want the boy?"

"The boy," she answered.

For a little while she was silent--vacantly contemplating the bare
floor. There had been no revelation. She was not taken unaware. She
had watched his purpose form. Long before, she had perceived the issue
approaching, and had bravely met it. But it was all now definite and
near. She found it hard to command her feeling--bitter to cut the
trammels of her love for the child.

"You got to pay, you know," she said, looking up. "Boy sopranos is
scarce. You can't have him cheap."

"Of course!" he hastened to say. "The church will pay."

"Money? It ain't money I want."

To this there was nothing to say. The curate was in the dark--and
quietly awaited enlightenment.

"Take him!" she burst out, rising. "My God! just you take him. That's
all I want. Understand me? I want to get rid of him."

He watched her in amazement. For a time she wandered about the room,
distraught, quite aimless: now tragically pausing; now brushing her
hand over her