week is over."

Mrs. Berry was not quite satisfied. "Not of his own accord he pass that
sweet young wife of his like a stranger this day, Sir Austin!"

"I must beg you not to intrude further, ma'am."

Mrs. Berry bobbed her bunch of a body out of the room.

"All's well that ends well," she said to herself. "It's just bad
inquirin' too close among men. We must take 'em somethin' like
Providence--as they come. Thank heaven! I kep' back the baby."

In Mrs. Berry's eyes the baby was the victorious reserve.

Adrian asked his chief what he thought of that specimen of woman.

"I think I have not met a better in my life," said the baronet, mingling
praise and sarcasm.

Clare lies in her bed as placid as in the days when she breathed; her
white hands stretched their length along the sheets, at peace from head
to feet. She needs iron no more. Richard is face to face with death for
the first time. He sees the sculpture of clay--the spark gone.

Clare gave her mother the welcome of the dead. This child would have
spoken nothing but kind commonplaces had she been alive. She was dead,
and none knew her malady. On her fourth finger were two wedding-rings.

When hours of weeping had silenced the mother's anguish, she, for some