Her hat and gloves were thrown upon the table and she still wore a long gray cloak which was stained and damp about the hem. He saw this as soon as he saw her face, and no sooner saw than he understood. He went to the sofa and stood a moment looking down at her, and, though he did not speak or stir, she awakened. She sat up and pushed her cloak aside, and he spoke to her. "It was you who brought it back," he said. "Yes," she answered quietly. "I thought that if you saw it in the old place again, you would remember." "_You_ did not forget it." "I had nothing else to think of," was her simple reply. "I must seem a poor sort of fellow to you," he said wearily. "I _am_ a poor sort of fellow." "No," she said "or I should not have thought it worth while to bring it back." He glanced down at her dress and then up at her face. "You had better go upstairs to bed," he said. "The dew has made your dress and cloak damp. Thank you for what you have done." She got up and turned away. "Good-night," she said. "Good-night," he answered, and watched her out of the room. Then he found what he required and went back to his work; only, more than once as he bent over it, he thought again of the innocent look of her face as it had rested upon her arm while she slept. CHAPTER XLVII. A FOOTSTEP. He went out no more at night. From the moment he laid his hand upon the model again he was safer than he knew. Gradually the old fascination re-asserted itself. There were hours of lassitude and weariness to be borne, and moments of unutterable bitterness and disgust for life, in which he had to fight sharp battles against the poorer side of his nature; but always at the worst there was something which made itself a point to fix thought upon. He could force himself to think of this when, if he had had no purpose in view, he would have been a lost man. The keen sense of treachery to his own resolve stung him, but it was a spur after all. The strength of the reaction had its physical effect upon him, and sometimes he suddenly found himself weak to exhaustion,--so weak that any exertion was impossible, and he was obliged to leave his post at the Works and return home for rest. At such times he lay for hours upon the narrow sofa in the dull little room, as his father had done long before, and wore a look so like him that, one day, his mother coming into the room not knowing he was there, cried out aloud and staggered backward, clutching at her breast. Her manner toward him softened greatly in these days. It was more what it had been in his boyhood, when she had watched over him with patient and unfailing fondness. Once he awakened to see her standing a few paces from his side, seeming to have been there some moments. "If--I have seemed hard to you in your trouble," she said, "forgive me."