"She did," he answered, sadly.
"And yet you say they are good men!" I exclaimed, indignantly.
"Good, benevolent, charitable, every one of them," he answered.
"Were you one of them, Barker?" I asked, after a moment's pause.
"Thank God, no!" he replied. "But perhaps in some other case I have done the same, if I only knew the whole story. Those men do not know this last, you must remember."
"And the worst of it is, we dare not tell them," said I, as we parted.
"No, we dare not," he replied, and left me standing with the copy of the burial certificate in my hand.
"Natural causes?" I said to myself, looking at it. "Died of natural causes—the brutality and selfishness of man—and poverty with love. Natural causes! Yes." And I closed my office door and turned out the light.