When the child cried a third time he remembered Winny. He would have to tell her. CHAPTER XXIII He rose and went to the fireplace mechanically. His impulse was to tear up and burn Violet's letter and thus utterly destroy all proof and the record of her shame. He was restrained by that strong subconscious sanity which before now had cared for him when he was at his worst. It suggested that he would do well to keep the letter. It was--it was a document. It might have value. Proofs and records were precisely what he might most want later on. He folded it and replaced it in its envelope and thrust it into the breast pocket of his coat. And it occurred to him again that he had got to tell Winny. He could hear her feet going up and down, up and down, in the front room overhead where she walked, hushing the crying baby. Presently the crying ceased and the footsteps, and he heard the low humming of her cradle song; then silence; and then the sound of her feet coming down the stairs. He would have to tell her now. He drew himself up, there where he was, standing by his hearth, and waited for her. She came in softly and shut the door behind her and stood there as if she were afraid to come too near. Her face was all eyes; all eyes of terror, as before a grief too great, a bereavement too awful for any help or consolation. She spoke first. "What is it, Ranny?" Her low voice went light like a tender hand that was afraid to touch his wound. "She's left me; that's all." Her lips parted, but no words came; they parted to ease the heart that fluttered with anguish in her breast. She moved a little nearer into the room, not looking at him, but with her head bowed slightly as if her shoulders bore Violet's shame. She stood a moment by the table, looking at her own hand as it closed on the edge, the fingers working up and down on the cloth. It might have been the hand of another person, for all she was aware of its half-convulsive motion. "Oh, Ranny, _dear_--" At last she breathed it out, the soul of her compassion, and all her hushed sense of his bereavement. "Did you know?" She shook her head, slowly, closing in an extremity of negation the eyes that would not look at him. "No--No--" It was as if she had said, "Who _could_ have known it?" Yet her voice had an uncertain sound. "But you had an idea?" "No," she said, taking courage from his incredible calmness. "I was afraid; that was all." And then, as one utterly beaten by him and defenseless, she broke down. "I tried so hard--so hard, so as it shouldn't happen." It was as if she had said, "I tried so hard--so hard to save her for you; but she had to die." "I know you did." But it was only then, in the long pause of that moment, that he knew; that he saw the whole full, rich meaning and intention of the things that she had done for him.