Durgan made the doctor tell her the truth quickly, and Hermione went straight on to the side of the nerveless man. Almost as soon as she looked, without a moment's betrayal of unusual emotion, she stooped and kissed him. In thick utterance the paralytic repeated her name. What he thought or felt none might know; the still features gave no expression. Then a great joy lit up her face, and the tone of her homely words was like a song of praise. "We can keep you safe. You will be quite safe here; and Birdie and I will take real good care of you. We have a beautiful home ready for you." The doctor had turned away. She gave her command to the bearers, and walked with new lightness beside the bed as it was carried toward the house. Durgan followed, and found that he was holding his hat in his hand. How terrible, indeed, was this meeting of love and lack-love, of the life gained by self-giving and the life lost by self-saving. The woman, at one with all the powers of life--body, mind, and spirit a unity--able (rare self-possession) to give herself when and for whom she would; meeting with this self-wrecked, disintegrated man, for whom she had suffered and was still eager to suffer. Like most things of divine import, that kiss given by the very principle of life to the soul lying in moral death had passed without observation. Durgan looked upon the still face. He could now clearly recognize the likeness to Bertha in the form, color, and inward glow of the eyes; but so fixed and expressionless were the muscles of the face, which had taken on a look of sensuous contentment, that the onlooker could not even guess what that glow of suffering might betoken, how much there was of memory, of shame, of remorse, of any love for aught but self, or how much latent force of moral recuperation there might be. While they went to the house through the tears of the morning, the negress with the velvet voice was still singing: "An' de Lord He sent His angel, An' He walked wi' de children in de flame. (Fly low, sweet angel.)" Durgan, who had been feeling like one in a dream, suddenly forgot to listen to the song, for he saw, as in a flash, the cause of Hermione's solemn joy. The criminal had been restored to her in the only way in which it was possible for his life to be preserved for a time, and for him to be allowed to die in peace. Neither Alden, nor any other, could propose to bring this stricken man to answer in an earthly court. It was again her privilege to lavish love upon him, to reap the result of her sacrifice by tending his lingering life and telling him her treasure of faith--of the mercy of God and the hope of heaven. Chapter XXXIV ALL THAT HAPPENED