“She must have grappled with all the forces that drive the world that night!...  First, I was happy on her arm—­and then, through the long hours, and mysteriously, she implanted her message....  And see what came of it—­see her strength!  The actual parting was not so terrible—­she had builded a fortress around me against that—­not so terrible as the hours before, when I tried not to breathe.”

Beth did not raise her eyes as he paused.  She could not speak.  The little boy had come home to her mind—­like a wraith-child of her own.  She was shaken with a passion of pity.

“It seems it was meant for me to stay in that house, but I couldn’t,” Bedient went on.  “They probably bothered a great deal after I stole away, and tried to find me.  But they didn’t....  And I went down where there were ships.  I think the ships fascinated me, because we had come on one.  I slipped aboard, and fell asleep below.  The sailors found me after we had cleared.  They were very good, and called me ’Handy.’...  I think my mother must have taught me my letters, for when an old sailor, with rings in his ears, pointed out to me the name of the ship on the jolly-boat, the letters came back to me.  I was soon reading the Bible.  That was the book I cut my teeth on, as they say....  And one time, as we were leaving port, I thought I had better have a name.  One of the men had asked me, you see, and I was only able to say, ‘Handy.’  And just then, we passed an old low schooner.  She had three masts; her planking was gray and weathered, and her seams gaped.  On her stern, I saw in faded sprawly letters, that had been black: 

     “ANDREW BEDIENT

“Of—­somewhere, I couldn’t make out.  So I took that for my name.  It fitted ‘Handy’ and the little boy’s idea of bigness and actuality, because I had seen it in print....  I never saw the old schooner again.  I don’t know the port in which she lay at the time; nor the port where my mother died.  You see, I was very little....  Everyone was good to me.  And it is true that my mother was near....  There were places and times that must have put dull care into her eyes, but she was the true sentry.  I only knew when I was asleep.”

It was beautiful to Beth, the way he spoke.  His heart seemed to say, “God love her!” with every sentence.

Her lips breathed the words, her eyes had long questioned: 

“And your father?”

The room suddenly filled with her fateful words.

“My father?” he repeated.  “He was never with my mother.  I did not understand until long afterward, but she meant me to understand—­that she was not married.  She impressed it upon my consciousness for me to understand—­when I was older.”

Beth could have knelt in her humility that moment.

“Please forgive me for asking,” she faltered.

“It was right.  I intended to tell you.”