"It was Lord Wychester," she said, brightly, "seeing me home from the party."
"Oh!" he yawned.
"Go to sleep."
He fell asleep at once. The stair creaked. The tenement was again quiet....
He was lying in his mother's place in the bed.... She looked out upon the river. Somewhere, far below in the darkness, the current still ran swirling to the sea—where the lights go different ways.... The boy was lying in his mother's place. And before she lifted him, she took his warm little hand, and kissed his brow, where the dark curls lay damp with the sweat of sleep. For a long, long time, she sat watching him through a mist of glad tears. The sight of his face, the outline of his body under the white coverlet, the touch of his warm flesh: all this thrilled her inexpressibly. Had she been devout, she would have thanked God for the gift of a son—and would have found relief.... When she crept in beside him, she drew him to her, tenderly still closer, until he was all contained in her arms; and she forgot all else—and fell asleep, untroubled.
