"I could bear it no longer," she answered.
"Many a one has thought that before you," he said; "but God alone knows what we can not bear until we are tried."
"Well, all is over now," she repeated listlessly.
She spoke of herself as if her days were already ended and past; as if her orb of life had been rounded by the brief span of the little existence that lay finished upon the bed. Hugh Ritson looked at her, and the muscles of his face twitched. Her weary eyes were still dry; their dim light seemed to come from far away.
"How I prayed that I might see my Ralphie," she said. "I thought surely God had willed it that I should never see my child. Perhaps that was to be my punishment for—all that had taken place. But I prayed still. Oh, you would not think how much I pray! But it must have been a wicked prayer."
She hid her face once more in her hands, and added, with unexpected animation:
"God heard my prayer, and answered it—but see!" She pointed to the child. "I saw him—yes, I saw him—die!"
Hugh Ritson was moved, but his heart was bitter. At that moment he cursed the faith that held in bondage the soul of the woman at his side. Would that he could trample it underfoot, and break forever the chains by which it held the simple.
"Hugh," she said, and her voice softened, "we are about to part forever. Our little Ralphie—yours and mine—he calls me. I could not live without him. God would not make me do that. He has punished me already, and He is merciful. Only think, our Ralphie is in heaven!"
She paused and bit her lip, and drew her breath audibly inward. Her face took then a death-like hue, and all at once her voice overflowed with anguish.