"Can't you feel _nothin'_? Are you mader stone? Come an' look at 'er lyin' there so quiet. She don't fret arter the likes o' you no more now. She won't sit no more a-lookin' outer winder an' sayin' nothin'--only droppin' 'er tears one by one, slow, slow on her lap. Come an' see 'er; come an' see what you done to my pretty--an' then ye can go. Nobody wants you 'ere. _She_ don't want you now. But p'r'aps you'd like to see 'er safe underground fust? I'll be bound you'll put a big slab on 'er--to make sure _she_ don't rise again." I turned on her. Her thin face was white with grief and impotent rage. Her claw-like hands were clenched. "Woman," I said, "have mercy!" She paused, and looked at me. "Eh?" she said. "Have mercy!" I said again. "Mercy? You should 'a thought o' that before. You 'adn't no mercy on 'er. She loved you--she died lovin' you. An' if I wasn't a Christian woman, I'd kill you for it--like the rat you are! That I would, though I 'ad to swing for it arterwards." I caught the woman's hands and held them fast, in spite of her resistance. "Don't you understand?" I said savagely. "We loved each other. She died loving me. I have to live loving her. And it's _her_ you pity. I tell you it was all a mistake--a stupid, stupid mistake. Take me to her, and for pity's sake let me be left alone with her." She hesitated; then said in a voice only a shade less hard-- "Well, come along, then." We moved towards the door. As she opened it a faint, weak cry fell on my ear. My heart stood still. "What's that?" I asked, stopping on the threshold. "Your child," she said shortly. That, too! Oh, my love! oh, my poor love! All these long months! "She allus said she'd send for you when she'd got over her trouble," the woman said as we climbed the stairs. "'I'd like him to see his little baby, nurse,' she says; 'our little baby. It'll be all right when the baby's born,' she says. 'I know he'll come to me then. You'll see.' And I never said nothin'--not thinkin' you'd come if she was your leavins, and not dreamin' as you could be 'er husband an' could stay away from 'er a hour--her bein' as she was. Hush!" She drew a key from her pocket and fitted it to the lock. She opened the door and I followed her in. It was a large, dark room, full of old-fashioned furniture. There were wax candles in brass candlesticks and a smell of lavender. The big four-post bed was covered with white. "My lamb--my poor pretty lamb!" said the woman, beginning to cry for the first time as she drew back the sheet. "Don't she look beautiful?"