"Good-bye—till—till the judgment day," he said huskily, standing above her, something of the wildly supernatural in the tone. He waited long—but she spoke no word, nor lifted her eyes from the dead face, nor relinquished her stern struggle with the complacent Conqueror.
He went out—and was gone with steady step. She knew it not. Perhaps it was about half an hour later when he returned, opening the door gently and passing her swiftly by. A father's yearning sat upon the ashen face—he went quickly and softly up the stairs. Then he lighted a match, shading it at first with his hands lest it should wake the shut eyes—and while it lent its fleeting light the stricken man drank deep of his children's faces. Then the darkness swallowed them up, and he groped his way down-stairs and passed out into the night.
It was still dark when she at last surrendered—but to God. And the fire was black and the house was cold when she too went out, closing the door carefully behind her. She groped about the little porch, feeling in every corner; and she examined the tiny veranda, and searched through all the neglected garden; she even noticed the fragrance of some simple flowers—they had planted them together, and the children had helped in turn, having one toy spade between them. But it was all empty, all still.
"Oh, Ned," she cried softly, passionately, her hands outstretched beneath the all-seeing stars, her face now the face of age, "oh, Ned, come back—you didn't mean to do it and you didn't know. Come back, Ned," she cried a little louder, "come back to Harvey and Jessie—they'll never know. Oh, Ned," as the outstretched hands were withdrawn and pressed quickly against her bosom. For it pained her—with its mother-burden—and she turned to go back to her baby. Then she saw its still face in the darkness—and her hands went out again towards the night. The silent stars looked down, pitying, helpless; she went back to her fatherless and her God.
II
THE WINE-PRESS ALONE
"The woman's name's Simmons, sir—an' she took the whole o' this half plot. She keeps a little store, mostly sweeties, I think," said Hutchins, as he laid his spade against the fence. "An' there wasn't no funeral—just her an' her two children; she brought the little one here from the city—that's where it was buried afore she came here to live."
His chief asked the labourer a question in a low voice.
"Oh, yes, that was all right," the man answered, picking an old leaf from a geranium plant as he spoke. "She showed me the original certificate she got in the city—or a copy of it, leastways; it said the baby came to its death from a fall on the floor. So that was all right—I asked the chairman. I couldn't help feelin' sorry for the woman, sir; she took on as bad as if it was new. An' the two little shavers was playin' hide an' seek round the tombstones afore I got the little grave filled in—she seemed to be terribly alone. It's funny, sir, how hard it is to get used to this business—I often says to my missus as how no man with kids of his own has any license to hire here," and the kindly executioner went off, spade in hand, to make a new wound in the oft-riven bosom of God's hospitable earth.
The hired helper had told about all that was known in Glenallen concerning their new townswoman. Indeed, rather more; for comparatively few knew anything of the little family gathering that had stood one early morning beside the tiny grave. The village was small—Glenallen had not yet achieved its fond hope that it would outgrow the humiliating state of villagehood—and its inhabitants were correspondingly well posted in the source, and antecedents, and attendant circumstances of all who came to dwell among them. But almost all they could ascertain regarding Mrs. Simmons was that she had come from the city, that she had two children living—as far as they could learn, their father was dead—that she had some scanty means with which she had embarked on the humble enterprise that was to provide her daily bread.