Gone to Earth

by Mary Gladys Meredith Webb

They rang in her brain. She felt dazed. At last she looked up affrightedly.

'But,' she said, 'when I have the baby, it unna be yours, but his'n.'

'What?'

'It—it'll be his'n.'

'What?'

He questioned foolishly, like a child. He could not understand.

'It's gone four month since midsummer,' she said, 'and Sally said I was wi' child of—of—'

'You need not go on, Hazel.'

Edward's face looked pinched. The passion had gone, and a deathly look replaced it. He was robbed, utterly and cruelly. He could no longer believe in a God, or how could such things be? Manhood was denied him. The last torture was not denied him—namely, that he saw the full satire of his position, saw that it was his own love that had destroyed them both. Out of his complete ruin he arose joyless, hopeless, but great in a tenderness so vast and selfless that it almost took the place of what he had lost.

Hazel was again his inspiration, not as an ideal, but as a waif. In his passion of pity for her he forgot everything. He had something to live for again.