“I learn that Craft is dying miserably in his wretched lodgings in Philadelphia.  With enough of ill-gotten gain to live on comfortably, his miserly instincts are causing him to suffer for the very necessities of life.”

“I am sorry for him,” said the lady; “very sorry.”

“He is not deserving of your sympathy, madam; he treated your son with great cruelty while he had him.”

“But he saved Ralph’s life.”

“That is no doubt true, yet he stole the jewelry from the child’s person and kept him only for the sake of obtaining ransom.

“This reminds me that it is also true that he had an interview with your husband on the day of Mr. Burnham’s death.  What took place between them I cannot ascertain, but I have learned that afterward, while the rescuing party were descending into the mine, your husband recognized Ralph in a way that those who saw and heard him could not at the time understand.  Recent events, however, prove beyond a doubt that your husband knew, on the day he died, that this boy was his son.”

Mrs. Burnham had been weeping silently.

“You are bringing me too much good and comforting news,” she said; “I am not quite able to bear it all, you see.”

She was smiling through her tears, but a look of anxiety crossed her face as she continued:—­

“I am worried about Ralph.  He has not yet come from the breaker.”

She glanced up at the little clock on the shelf, and then went to look out from the window.

The man on the bed moved and moaned, and she went back to him.

“Perhaps we had better send some one to look for the boy,” said Goodlaw.  “I will go myself—­”

He was interrupted by the opening of the door.  Andy Gilgallon stood on the threshold and looked in with amazement.  He had not expected to find the lady and the lawyer there.

“I come to see Bachelor Billy,” he said.  “Me an’ him work togither at the head.  He got it worse nor I did.  I’m over it, only I’m wake yit.  The likes o’ it was niver seen afoor.”

He looked curiously in at the bed where his comrade was lying.

“Come in,” said Mrs. Burnham, “come in and look at him.  He’s not conscious yet, but I think he’ll soon come to himself.”

The man entered the room, walking on the toes of his clumsy shoes.

“Have you seen anything of Ralph since the fire?” continued the lady.

Andy stopped and looked incredulously at his questioner.

“An’ have ye not heard?” he asked.

“Heard what, Andy?” she replied, her face paling as she noted the man’s strange look.

“Why, they didn’t get ’im out,” he said.  “It’s in the mine he is, sure, mum.”

She stood for a moment in silence, her face as white as the wall behind her.  Then she clasped her hands tightly together and all the muscles of her body grew rigid in the desperate effort to remain calm for the sake of the unconscious man on the bed, for the sake of the lost boy in the mine, for the sake of her own ability to think and to act.