Farnsworth followed Delia into the kitchen, without even those greetings which habit renders so involuntary that only in the most poignant moments are they disregarded. With their past between them it was not easy to break the silence. Farnsworth seated himself, and the woman stood regarding him. There was in her attitude all the questioning, all the agony, of her years of suffering. Her wrongs and her sorrows gave her a dignity before which he shrank as he could not have quailed under the most withering reproaches. Whatever words he would have spoken--and no man can come deliberately to so important a crisis without formulating, even if unconsciously, the plea which his self-defence will make--were forgotten, or seemed miserably inadequate now. What were words to this woman, pallid and worn before her time with privation, anguish, and unwomanly toil? The contrast between his rich and careful dress and her coarse garb, between his white hands and her knotted fingers, between his high-bred, pale face and her cowed, weather-beaten countenance, was too violent not to be apparent to them both,--as if they were in some strange way merely spectators looking dispassionately at this wretched meeting of those who had once been passionate lovers. With each moment the silence became more oppressive; yet as each moment dragged by it became more difficult to break the stillness. Only a man utterly devoid of remorse or feeling could have framed upon his tongue commonplace phrases at such a time. It seemed to Farnsworth as if he were brought to judgment before the whole universe. His throat became parched. He longed to have the candle and the flames flickering in the old fireplace go out in darkness, and take from his sight the Nemesis that confronted him. He broke the silence at last with a cry:-- "Ah, my God, Delia! What have I done?" She wavered as she stood, putting out her hand as if reaching for support. Then she half staggered backward into a chair. "There is nothing I can say!" Farnsworth went on vehemently. "There is nothing I can do! I came here dreaming of making reparation; but there is no reparation I can make. There is nothing that can change the past,--nothing that will undo what I have done to you. Oh, my God! How little I dreamed it would be like this!" "No," she said slowly, almost stupidly, "nothing can undo it." "Why did you not tell me?" he began. "Why--" But the words rebuked him before they were spoken. He buried his face in his hands, and again they were silent. What the woman,--this woman who had never been able to think much, even in her best days, and who now was blunted and dulled almost to stupidity,--what she felt in those bitter moments, who can tell? The man's soul was a tumult of wild regret and unavailing remorse, while she waited again for him to speak. "But," Farnsworth said at length, a new idea seizing him, "but the--our child, Delia? The boy?"