tears to her--"I should not have broken down like this if she had not
unmanned me. The child should have gone to bed."

She heard him swallow down his tears, and then he began again: "Deleah and
Franky have always been--have always been--"

"The dearest," she supplied, understanding him. "The dearest of your
children, William?"

"Tell them that--after to-morrow, will you?"

She promised. "Bessie and Bernard have not such winning ways, perhaps, but
they love you, William, I am sure."

To this he made no answer. After a time she spoke to him again: "Have you
anything else to say to me, William? There have been too few words between
us of late. It has been my fault, perhaps. But now, have you anything to
say that might comfort us both to remember?"

"Nothing." He said the word drearily, but not unkindly, and she did not
resent his silence. Full well she knew that volumes, if he could have
spoken them, could not have lightened her helplessness in the present and
terror of the future, nor his despair.

She lay for a few minutes, the tears pouring down her cheeks, unchecked in
the darkness, then she forced herself to say the only few words she could
think of which might comfort him in the time to come.

"William, I won't talk to you, I won't disturb you. I want you to go to
sleep, to get a night's rest, if you can; but just this one thing I do