"Yes, you are his mother— I'm his wife, and we have lost him. Oh, Mrs. Trott, what are we to do—how can we bear it?"
Tilly's voice quivered and hung in her throat and broke into sobs. The woman within the woman of the world took the weeping child to her breast and held her there. She, too, was weeping now and afraid to trust her abashed voice to utterance. Locked in a mutual embrace, they stood for several minutes. Then Lizzie, the weaker vessel of the two, found her voice.
"Why did you come here?" she cried. "Oh, why did you come here?"
"I had to see you," Tilly made husky reply. "I know how you feel because I know how I feel. Oh, Mrs. Trott, you are his mother—actually his mother. I see the look of him in your face, in your eyes, in your hair and hands, and hear his voice in yours. Do you know that I killed him? If I had not left him as I did he would have been alive to-day. I was a coward—but, oh, it was for John, for John's sake that I did it!"
"I understand," Lizzie half groaned, "but you were not to blame, my child. I am the one. It's just me, child—just me and no one else. I spoiled his life and yours. I know it—I know it. You ought to hate me, as all the rest do, and not come here like this. Don't you know that if people knew you were here they would—would—"
"Hush!" Tilly said, pressing Lizzie's hands to her breast and holding them there. "I love you—I love you even more—yes, more than I do my own mother. You are my mother. Death has parted John and me, but nothing should part me from you. Some day you must let me stay with you—live with you, care for you, work for you. Oh, Mrs. Trott, I want to be to you what John would have been had he lived to see you so lonely and unhappy as you are now."
As she stared Lizzie Trott seemed fairly to wilt in the rays of the new sun that was blazing over her. "Why, child, darling child," she sobbingly cried out, "you could never live with me. It is out of all reason. Even this visit is imprudent. You must go home—you must go back to your mother. Surely you know that this very roof—"
"I don't care for that," Tilly broke in. "I can't live with my people— I don't want to live anywhere but with you. You need me—yes, that is the truth; you need me, and I need you. I feel rested and soothed here, as if God Himself were with me. I don't feel so anywhere else."
They sat down on the old sofa, side by side. They wept and clung together. After a while Tilly raised her head. "I've always wanted to see John's room. May I?" she asked. "Would you mind? It is silly, perhaps, but I want to see it. He told me how he used to study and work there at night."
Lizzie nodded and rose. It was dark now and she lighted a lamp. At the foot of the stairs, however, she stopped abruptly.