'd better go home, an' to yer bed--yer can't do no good."

"I'll wait for Mary Anne," said John, in a shaking whisper--"I'll wait
for Mary Anne."

And he stood at the doorway, leaning on his stick; his weak and
reddened eyes fixed on his cousin, his mouth open feebly.

But Mary Anne, weeping, beckoned to another woman who had come up with
the little procession, and they began their last offices.

"Let us go," said the doctor kindly, his hand on Isaac's shoulder,
"till they have done."

At that moment Watson, throwing a last professional glance round the
room, perceived the piece of torn paper propped against the glass. Ah!
there was the letter. There was always a letter.

He walked forward, glanced at it, and handed it to Isaac. Isaac drew
his hand across his brow in bewilderment, then seemed to recognise the
handwriting, and thrust it into his pocket without a word. Watson
touched his arm. "Don't you destroy it," he said in warning; "it'll be
asked for at the inquest."

The men descended. Watson and the doctor departed. John and Isaac
were left alone in the kitchen. Isaac hung over the fire, which had
been piled up in the hope of restoring warmth to the drowned woman.
Suddenly he took out the letter and, bending his head to the blaze,
began to read it.

"Isaac, yer a cruel husband to me, an' there's no way fer me but the
way I'm goin'. I didn't mean no 'arm, not at first, but there, wot's
the good of talkin'? I can't bear the way as you speaks to me an'
looks at me, an' I'll never go to prison--no, never. It's orful--fer
the children ull 'ave no mother, an' I don't know however Arthur 'ull
manage. But yer woodent shew me no mercy, an' I can't think of
anythin' different. I did love yer an' the childer, but the drink got
holt of me. Yer mus' see as Arthur is rapped up, an' Edie's eyes 'ull
'ave to be seen to now an' agen. I'm sorry, but there's nothin' else.
I wud like yer to kiss me onst, when they bring me in, and jes say,
Bessie, I forgive yer. It won't do yer no 'arm, an' p'raps I may 'ear
it without your knowin'. So good-bye, Isaac, from yur lovin' wife,
Bessie. . . ."

As he read it, the man's fixed pallor and iron calm gave way. He leant
against the mantelpiece, shaken at last with the sobs of a human and a
helpless remorse.

John, from his seat on the settle a few yards away, looked at Isaac
miserably. His lips opened now and then as though to speak, then
closed again. His brain