He did not answer her, but the bed shook with his rending sobs; and she lay and sobbed beside him.
When at length such calm as comes from exhaustion fell: "I did it for you and the children," he said. "I thought, with luck, I could have put it right. But it was for all of you I did it. You will remember that?"
"I will remember it while I live," she said. "You may be quite sure that neither your children nor I will ever forget."
"Deleah upset me. She should have been in bed"—it was so he excused his tears to her—"I should not have broken down like this if she had not unmanned me. The child should have gone to bed."
She heard him swallow down his tears, and then he began again: "Deleah and
Franky have always been—have always been—"
"The dearest," she supplied, understanding him. "The dearest of your children, William?"
"Tell them that—after to-morrow, will you?"
She promised. "Bessie and Bernard have not such winning ways, perhaps, but they love you, William, I am sure."
To this he made no answer. After a time she spoke to him again: "Have you anything else to say to me, William? There have been too few words between us of late. It has been my fault, perhaps. But now, have you anything to say that might comfort us both to remember?"
"Nothing." He said the word drearily, but not unkindly, and she did not resent his silence. Full well she knew that volumes, if he could have spoken them, could not have lightened her helplessness in the present and terror of the future, nor his despair.