s on him again? Shall I, Uniacke? Shall I?"

Sir Graham put this strange question with a sort of morose fierceness,
getting up from his chair as he spoke. The young clergyman could think
of no reply.

"Why not?" he said at last. "He may be well, happy, active in a life
that he loves, that he glories in."

"No, Uniacke, no, for he's far away from his duty. That hideous old
woman, in her degradation, in her cruelty, in her drunkenness, loved
that boy, loves him still, with an intensity, a passion, a hunger, a
feverish anxiety that are noble, that are great. Her hatred of me proves
it. I honour her for her hatred. I respect her for it! She shows the
beauty of her soul in her curses. She almost teaches me that there is
indeed immortality--at least for women--by her sleepless horror of me.
Her hatred, I say, is glorious, because her love shines through it. I
feed her. She doesn't know it. She'd starve rather than eat my bread.
She would kill me, I believe, if she didn't fancy in her vague mind,
obscured by drink, that the man who had sent her boy from her might
bring him back to her. For weeks she came every day--walking all the way
from Drury Lane, mind you--to ask if the boy had returned. Then she
endured the nightmare of my company, as I told you, while we searched in
likely places for the vanished sea urchin. Jack did nothing for the
support of his mother. It was she who kept him. She beat him. She cursed
him. She fed him. She loved him; like an animal, perhaps, like a mother,
certainly. That says all, Uniacke. It was I who sent that boy away. I
must give him back to that old woman. Till I do so I can never find
peace. This thing preys upon my life, eats into my heart. It's the
little worm gnawing, always gnawing at me. The doctors tell me I am
morbid because I am in bad health, that my bad health makes the malady
in my mind. On the contrary, it is my mind that makes the malady in my
body. Ah! you are wondering! You are wondering, too, whether it's not
the other way! I see you are!"

"I cannot deny it," Uniacke said gently.

"You are wrong. You are wrong, I assure you. And surely you, a
clergyman, ought to be the very man to understand me, to know how what
seems a slight thing, a small selfishness, well, the inadvertence we
spoke of lately, may punish the soul, may have a long and evil train of
consequences. I was careless of that child, careful only of my ambition.
I ground the child in the mortar of my ambition; i