"Wife!"
"I am here!" came the ready response.
She was in his arms the next moment, clinging to him whilst convulsive sobs—stifled, but none the less strong—shook her from head to foot.
At first words failed them both, he in his astonishment and she in the violence of her grief; but as tears relieved the overburdened brain of the woman she regained sufficient command of herself to speak.
"Our little son!—my baby! He is dead!"
Then, as an exclamation escaped Ananda's lips, she placed her hand over his mouth.
"Ah! hush!" she whispered. "They do not know that I have come to you. If they find me here they will beat me again!"
"Beat you! My pearl! Who has dared to lay a finger upon my wife?" he whispered fiercely, drawing her still closer.
"Our uncle's wife. Of late she has taken much upon herself. She has tried continually to push me from my place, saying that her husband would be the big master of the house when your father died. Then she will be mistress, and as such it was only fitting that she should come next to your mother instead of me."
"But why should she strike you?"