“I will not, and how I shall tell them only God knows.”
The next moment he had gone, leaving her alone.
“I will go back and look at my children,” she said. “I may not see them again.”
She went to the nursery, with that same strange, fluttering pain at her heart.
She bent over them and kissed them with a passion of tears.
“How shall I leave you?” she moaned. “How can I part from you? I go forth to shame and death, but you will know all in heaven.”
Then her heart gave way, and she wept until her very soul seemed exhausted and she could weep no more. Little Harry stirred in his sleep, and she soothed him with gently murmured words. Who would soothe them when she was gone? Who would tell them how dearly she had loved them, and how well she loved them? Who would whisper the name of the disgraced mother?
She ceased weeping at last, and a look of calm came over her face.
“God knows,” she said, as she laid her tired head on the pillow to rest. “God knows, and the children will know in another world.”