untamed things of nature, the bellows and the fire had been so long
there, and the clang of the anvil was so familiar, that there was a
kinship among them, man and beast, with the woman as ruler.

"Tell me, Samantha," he said at last, "what has happened during these
twelve years, all from the first. Keep nothing back. I am strong now." He
looked around the workshop, then, suddenly, at her, with a strange pain,
and they both turned their heads away for an instant, for the same
thought was on them. Then, presently, she spoke, and answered his shy,
sorrowful thought before all else. "The child is gone," she softly said.

He sat still, but a sob was in his throat. He looked at her with a kind
of fear. He wondered if his madness had cost the life of the child. She
understood. "Did I ever see the child?" he asked.

"Oh yes, I sometimes thought that through the babe you would be yourself
again. When you were near her you never ceased to look at her and fondle
her, as I thought very timidly; and you would start sometimes and gaze at
me with the old wise look hovering at your eyes. But the look did not
stay. The child was fond of you, but she faded and pined, and one day as
you nursed her you came to me and said: 'See, beloved, the little one
will not wake. She pulled at my beard and said, "Daddy," and fell
asleep.' And I took her from your arms. . . . There is a chestnut tree
near the door of our cottage at the mine. One night you and I buried her
there; but you do not remember her, do you?"

"My child, my child!" he said, looking out into the night; and he lifted
up his arms and looked at them. "I held her here, and still I never held
her; I fondled her, and yet I never fondled her; I buried her, yet--to
me--she never was born."