John kept his promise, and called to see Edith just before he was ready to leave the mansion. She was sleeping when he was let into the darkened room; and when he looked down upon her, in her purity, dreaming, perhaps of him, he felt the power of love that was bearing him down. Were everything made of sweet toned bells, and they were every one ringing, no greater would be the alarum than that which at that moment knelled through him. The fear of death coming to her, the fear of her loss should she come back to life, the fear of those who brought her into the world, the fear of Fate, the fear of Chance, struck him dumb. Would her death be worse than life? he thought; would her life be worse than death? Sleeping calmly, peacefully, without a murmur from her lips; breathing lightly, evenly, without a break in the respiration; resting now as if the angels had brought a cure from out the skies--John felt the holy thrall which controlled him. He knelt down by the bed, and took her white hand in his, and tears of his mercy wet her limp fingers; and he prayed. Then, rising, with his heart too full to speak, he turned to the door to leave. Miss Barton, seeing his agitation, came up to speak to him, with her eyes also filled with tears. "Wait till she awakes," she said. "I cannot," he replied. "She expects to see you before you go." "Tell her--" and he was gone. CHAPTER XVI. BILLY BARTON'S FLIGHT. When Billy Barton left his home and family, he went without a clue to his destination; and he left no word behind of his going. The world to him had been a series of degenerating allurements ever since he could remember anything; and Evil Repute was the sum of his reward. He was brought up amid the scenes of the river's traffic as a wharf man, or roustabout; and was called the waterman, by reason of an ineradicable habit he had of invariably falling into the stream when intoxicated. This predilection of Billy's might have cured such a failing in any other man; but the more often Billy fell into the river the less inclined he was to accept the water cure. The frequency of these periodic immersions grew to such dimensions that his qualifications as a wharfman became nil, and he thereby lost his right to a permanancy among the gang, causing him, one day early in his years, to be placed on the reserve list to take his chances for obtaining work as an extra.