“God pity her, God comfort her!” she sobbed. “Ah, no wonder she execrates me! Through me she lost her noble son. Why did I ever come under her roof, and bring with me the doom of that tragedy? What have I accomplished? Nothing--less than nothing. I have wronged a true heart by a monstrous doubt, and through me he came to his death. And I am just as far as ever from keeping my vow to clear my mother from that dark cloud of shame! Oh, my dearest one, how could I ever meet you again, even in heaven, if I had broken faith with you! No, no, I cannot go to you, my vow binds me here!” CHAPTER XII. THE BEAUTIFUL YOUNG WIDOW. As Italy crouched there, weeping in wild abandon, she heard a door open, lower down the hall, then footsteps coming along, accompanied by the crying of an infant. The footsteps stopped at her door, there was a light rap, then a woman’s voice said deprecatingly: “I beg pardon, Miss Vale, but I heard you up. May I speak to you?” “One moment,” answered Italy. She hurriedly lighted her gas, threw on her dressing-gown, and opened the door to Mrs. Mays, her landlady, who entered with the crying infant in her arms. “My dear, I beg a hundred pardons, but my daughter is taken suddenly very ill with convulsions, and there is not another lady in the house that I can appeal to for help. The nurse left to-day, and the baby cannot stay in bed with its sick mother. It is crying from loneliness and cold. Will you, my dear, let it lie in bed with you to-night while I attend to my daughter?” “Certainly,” Italy answered, taking the screaming bundle of flannel and lace rather gingerly into her arms, “but, dear me, Mrs. Mays, how can I stop its crying?” “It will stop itself as soon as you get into bed, and let it snuggle up close on your arm and get warm. You see, it has been used to sleeping with its mother and in the dark, but her restless tossings and the light in her room keep it awake and sick. Do the best you can with it, my dear, and God bless you!” cried Mrs. Mays, hurrying from the room, while Italy locked the door, lowered the light, and crept into bed with her wee charge that, sure enough, as soon as it became conscious of the warmth and the darkness, cuddled close within her warm arm and fell asleep. “Poor little girlie,” murmured Italy, with that rush of tenderness every womanly heart feels for helpless infancy. But the chances are that had Italy guessed whose child lay on her arm she would have recoiled from it with something near akin to loathing. Italy had been an inmate of this pleasant boarding-house almost two months, but she had never seen Mrs. Mays’ widowed daughter nor heard her name, although she knew that she was very young, and had been suddenly widowed in barely a year after marriage.