“Yes?”
“And I've been thinking the way he'll be doing it will be going to the graveyards and seeing the names on the gravestones, and calling them out loud to rise up to judgment; some, as it's saying, to life eternal, and some to everlasting punishment.”
“Well?”
“Well, sir, I've been thinking if he comes to this one and sees no name on it”—Pete's voice sank to a whisper—“maybe he'll pass it by and let the poor sinner sleep on.”
Stumbling back to the Court-house through the dark lane Philip thought, “It was a lie then, but it's true now. It must be true. She must be dead.” There was a sort of relief in this certainty. It was an end, at all events; a pitiful end, a cowardly end, a kind of sneaking out of Fate's fingers; it was not what he had looked for and intended, but he struggled to reconcile himself to it.
Then he remembered the child and thought, “Why should I disturb it? Why should I disturb Pete? I will watch over it all its life. I will protect it and find a way to provide for it. I will do my duty by it. The child shall never want.”
He was offering the key to the lock of the prisoners' yard when some one passed him in the lane, peered into his face, then turned about and spoke.
“Oh, it's you, Deemster Christian?”
“Yes, doctor. Good-night!”
“Have you heard the news from Ballawhaine? The old gentleman had another stroke this morning.”