Meantime, they had revived Millie Slade. She was in the common dressing-room--a littered, infamous, foul, place, situated below stage. Behind her the gas flared and screamed. Still in her panderous disguise, within hearing of the rasping music and the tramp of the dance, within hearing of the coarse applause, this tender mother sat alone, unconscious of evil--uncontaminated, herself kept holy by her motherhood, lifted by her love from the touch of sin. To her all the world was a temple, undefiled, wherein she worshipped, wherein the child was a Presence, purifying every place. She had no strength left for tragic behaviour. She sat limp, shedding weak tears, whimpering, tearing at her finger nails. "I'm found out!" she moaned. "Oh, my God! He'll never love me no more!" A woman entered in haste. "You got it, Aggie?" the mother asked. "Yes, dear. Now, you just drink this, and you'll feel better." "I don't want it--now." "Aw, now, you drink it! Poor dear! It'll do you lots of good." "He wouldn't want me to." "Aw, he won't know. And you need it, dear. _Do_ drink it!" "No, Aggie," said the mother. "It don't matter that he don't know. I just don't want it. I _can't_ do what he wouldn't like me to." The glass was put aside. And Aggie sat beside the mother, and drew her head to a sympathetic breast. "Don't cry!" she whispered. "Oh, Millie, don't cry!" "Oh," the woman whimpered, "he'll think me an ugly thing, Aggie. He'll think me a skinny thing. If I'd only got here in time, if I'd only looked right, he might have loved me still. But he won't love me no more--after to-day!" "Hush, Millie! He's only a kid. He don't know nothing about--such things." "Only a kid," said the mother, according to the perverted experience of her life, "but still a man!" "He wouldn't care." "They _all_ care!" Indeed, this was her view; and by her knowledge of the world she spoke. "Not him," said Aggie. The mother was infinitely distressed. "Oh," she moaned, "if I'd only had time to pad!" This was the greater tragedy of her situation: that she misunderstood. [Illustration: Tailpiece to _The Mother_] [Illustration: Headpiece to _Nearing the Sea_] _NEARING THE SEA_ It was Sunday evening. Evil-weather threatened. The broad window of top floor rear looked out upon a lowering sky--everywhere gray and thick: turning black beyond the distant hills. An hour ago the Department wagon had rattled away with the body of Mr. Poddle; and with the cheerfully blasphemous directions, the tramp of feet, the jocular comment, as the box was carried down the narrow stair, the last distraction had departed. The boy's mother was left undisturbed to prepare for the crucial moments in the park.