“I told your father everything,” she heard the doctor say in a low tone. “I recognized her on the instant. I happened to have attended her, by the merest chance, when her child was born.” “Her child?” the other asked, in the same low, far-away voice. “Yes--and your child. He is in Thessaly now, a boy nearly six years old.” “Good God! I never knew--” “You seem to have taken precious good care not to know,” said the doctor, with grave dislike. “This is the time and place to speak plainly to you, Boyce. This poor girl has come to her death through the effort to save you from disgrace. She supposed you lived here, and dragged herself here to help you.” Jessica heard the sentence of doom without even a passing thought. Every energy left in her feebly fluttering brain was concentrated upon the question, _Is_ he saved? Vaguely the circumstances of the papers, of the threats against Horace, of her desires and actions, seemed to come back to her memory. She waited in dazed suspense to hear what Horace would say; but he only hung his head the lower, and left the doctor to go on. “She raved for hours last night,” he said, “after the women had got her to bed, and we had raised her out of the comatose state, about saving you from State prison. First she would plead with Tracy, then she would appeal to you to fly, and so backwards and forwards, until she wore herself out. The papers she had got hold of--they must have slipped out of Gedney’s pocket into the sleigh. I suppose you know that I took them back to Tracy this morning?” Still Horace made no answer, but bent that crushed and vacant gaze upon her face. She marvelled that he could not see she was awake and conscious, and still more that the strength and will to speak were withheld from her. The dreadful pressure upon her breast was making itself felt again, and the painful sound of the labored breathing took on the sombre rhythm of a distant death-chant. Oh, would he never speak! No: still the doctor went on: “Tracy will be here in a few minutes. He’s terribly upset by the thing, and has gone first to tell the news at the Minsters’. Do you want to see him when he comes?” “I don’t know what I want,” said Horace, gloomily. “If I were you, I would go straight to him and say frankly, ‘I have been a damned fool, and a still damneder hypocrite, and I throw myself on your mercy.’ He’s the tenderest-hearted man alive, and this sight here will move him. Upon my word, I can hardly keep the tears out of my eyes myself.” Jessica saw as through a mist that these two men’s faces, turned upon her, were softened with a deep compassion. Then suddenly the power to speak came to her. It was a puny and unnatural voice which fell upon her ears--low and hoarsely grating, and the product of much pain. “Go away--doctor,” she murmured. “Leave him here.”