and said nothing. But a frown distorted his
face slowly.

"Leave your redemption to God. Oh, Maurice, leave it," Lily said, and
there were tears in her eyes. "If this cry of the dead child is his
punishment to you it must--it will--endure so long as he pleases. Your
efforts cannot still it now. You yourself told me so once."

"I told you?"

"Yes--for the dead are beyond our hands and our lips. We cannot clasp
them. We cannot kiss them. We cannot speak to them."

"But they can speak to us and mock us. You are right. I can't still the
cry--I can't! Then it's all over with me!"

Suddenly, with a sob, Maurice flung himself down. He felt as if
something within him snapped, and as if straightway a dissolution of all
the man in him succeeded this rupture of the spirit. Careless of the
pride of man, before the world and even in his own home, he gave himself
up to a despair that was too weak to be frantic, too complete to be
angry; a despair that no longer strove but yielded, that lay down in the
dust and wept. Then, presently, raising his head and seeing Lily, in
whose eyes were tears of pity, Maurice was seized with an enmity against
her, unreasonably wicked, but suddenly so vehement that he did not try
to resist it.

"You have broken me," he said. "You have told me that there is no
redemption, that I am in the hands of God, who persecutes me. You have
told me the truth and made me hate you."

"Maurice!"

The cry came from her lips faintly, but there was the ring of anguish in
it.

"It is so," he repeated doggedly. "And, indeed, I believe that you have
added to the weight of my burden. Since we have been married the
persecution has increased. Once, when I was alone, I could bear it. Now
you are here I cannot bear it. The child hates you. When you are
near--in the night--its cry is so intense that I wonder you can sleep.
Yet I hear your quiet breathing. You say you love me. Then why are you
so calm? Why do you tell me to trust? Why do you hint that I may yet
find peace, and then tell me to cease from working for my own peace? You
don't love me, you laugh at my trouble. You despise me."

He burst out of the room almost like a man demented.

It might be supposed that Lily, who loved him, would have been
overwhelmed by this ecstasy of anger against her. But there was
something that sheathed her heart from death. She might be wounded, she
might suffer; but she looked beyond the present time, over the desert of
her fa