They stood thus for some seconds, while no sound was heard but the loud ticking of the cheap lodging-house clock on the mantelpiece. The wife sobbed a little in sympathy with her husband; not that she considered at all how her own heart was wrung, but that she felt how his was. Seeing and hearing her, he recovered himself.
"Come, my dear," said he, "this does no good. Let us sit down, and see what can be arranged."
He led her back to her seat. He sat down beside her, transferred the boy to his own lap, and held her hand.
"Come now, Jim," said he to his boy, "how am I going to get you and your mammy to the country? Eh?"
"Daddy come, too," said the child, putting his arm about his father's neck.
"I would, Jim, I would," said he, with the faintest suspicion of a painful catch in his voice still; "but I have no money. And I don't know how mammy and you are to go, unless some kind friend offers to take you in."
"Oh, James dear!" exclaimed the wife, impulsively, catching her husband's hand to her cheek. "It's I who have taken you from kind friends! I am a burden to you, and nothing but a burden!"
"My dear wife," said he, bending to her, "you are the sweetest burden that man could bear, and I'd rather have you than all else the world could give."
"It's beautiful, my dear," said she, "to hear you say so. It's like sweet music to me; but it's not true. If you had married another—if you had married differently, and as you were expected to have married—you would not be here now; and if you had a sick boy, like our dear, poor Jim, there would have been no difficulty in getting to the country, or in getting anything that was needed for him! But you married me, and—my poor, dear love!—you bear the penalty!"
"Mary," said he, with a certain touch of solemnity in his voice, "I have not for one instant regretted that we loved each other, and married each other, and, whatever may come, I shall not regret it. The complete love of a woman like you is more precious than rubies. Your love, my darling,"—and he caressed the head crowned with a glory of bright hair—"is the joy of my life—God forgive me!"