long release. Out in the one other room the mother sat, huddled over the embers of a wood fire in a broken stove, her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, hopeless and horror-stricken. At midnight Barry Malleson came in. He had not knocked at the door. He had found knocking in these doleful days to be a superfluous task. The woman barely noticed him as he entered. She did not lift her face from her hands. By the light of the tallow dip in the other room he saw Mary Bradley sitting at the bedside of the child. She motioned to him to come in.
"Will I disturb her?" he whispered, as he tiptoed to the door.
"No," she replied; "nothing will ever disturb her again."
"I heard you were here," he said, "and I came to walk home with you. It's after midnight."
"That was very thoughtful of you, Barry. But I shall not go home to-night. I can't leave the woman, and I can't leave the child. Don't you see I can't leave her?"
His eyes followed hers toward the bed, and rested for a moment on the white, pathetic face, marked with the sign of speedy dissolution, lying quietly against the soiled pillow.
"I see," he said. "What's to be done?"
"Nothing," she replied, and repeated, "nothing; nothing."
"You know," he continued, "I'd stop this whole fiendish business in five minutes if I had any voice in the board; but they won't listen to me, not one of them."
"I know, Barry. You're not to blame. You've done everything in your power. You're a hero. But, my God, it's horrible!"
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she wiped them away. Barry's heart was touched. It was the first time in all this dreadful period of her ministry that he had seen
