He touched it with his trembling fingers; he longed intensely to get away from it, and yet he could not stir. His knees felt bound with irons to the floor; his hands must, whether he liked it or not, touch that cold cheek; his eyes must rest on his wife's dead face. And all the time he was looking also at his sins. He knew that he had killed Sally; that he had finished the work the Dolphin had set him to do. He had committed murder! His thoughts took no connected form, for his mind was too much gone, and even this shock failed to clear that muddled brain; but he felt horrible, and he knew that he deserved hell. Sally was dead; lying stiff by his side all night a corpse had been, and he had been dreaming of his wife as rosy-faced and beautiful. He had awakened and felt thirsty, and thought that he would order her up to make him a cup of tea. Even in dying that patient woman would have struggled to obey him; but now she was dead. He might storm at her now, but she would not heed him; he might beat her now, but she would not feel his blows. Sally was too great for him at last. She had passed beyond his power--she was dead! He had killed her; he and the Dolphin had worn her to what she was. She was dead, and he deserved hell. These, though hardly in sustained thought, but in confusion frightful as a nightmare, were some of the sensations of this poor lost wretch. After a time his bodily thirst overcame his mental pain, and he stumbled to his feet, and looked about him for something to drink. The kettle, placed by Molly there the night before, still hung over the ashes in the grate. He took a draught from it eagerly, drinking from the spout. As he set it down again he heard an infant's cry. The feeble, sharp cry of a new-born baby smote on his ear. A strange look came into his face at that cry--a new expression which he had certainly not worn a moment before. Then he had been at the verge of remorse, of sorrow, of repentance; a word, a touch, almost a look, would have taken the man then into the Valley of Humiliation, through which and the Shadow of Death he might have passed into a new life; but at the baby's cry the agony on his face gave way to an expression of selfishness and cunning. There was another mouth to be fed, and he must feed it; there was another child to take from the Dolphin's spoils. He pictured the whole state of affairs vividly enough now. The wife who worked so hard, and earned far more than he of late had earned, was gone, and Molly and Patty would persecute him for money to buy milk and food for this fresh and unwelcome mouth. The older children might manage as they could, but the baby must take from his spoils and lessen his enjoyment. Would it not be possible for him to get rid of the baby!