’Isaac, yer a cruel husband to me, an there’s no way fer me but the way I’m goin.  I didn’t mean no ’arm, not at first, but there, wot’s the good o’ talkin.  I can’t bear the way as you speaks to me an looks at me, an I’ll never go to prison—­no, never.  It’s orful—­fer the children ull ’ave no mother, an I don’t know however Arthur ull manage.  But yer woodent show me no mercy, an I can’t think of anythin different.  I did love yer an the childer, but the drink got holt o’ me.  Yer mus see as Arthur is rapped up, an Edie’s eyes ull ’ave to be seen to now an agen.  I’m sorry, but there’s nothin else.  I wud like yer to kiss me onst, when they bring me in, and jes say, Bessie, I forgive yer.  It won’t do yer no ’arm, an p’raps I may ’ear it without your knowin.  So good-bye, Isaac, from yur lovin wife, Bessie....’

As he read it, the man’s fixed pallor and iron calm gave way.  He leant against the mantelpiece, shaken at last with the sobs of a human and a helpless remorse.

John, from his seat on the settle a few yards away, looked at Isaac miserably.  His lips opened now and then as though to speak, then closed again.  His brain could form no distinct image.  He was encompassed by a general sense of desolation, springing from the loss of his money, which was pierced every now and then by a strange sense of guilt.  It seemed to have something to do with Bessie, this last, though what he could not have told.

So they sat, till Mary Anne’s voice called ‘Isaac’ from the top of the stairs.

Isaac stood up, drew one deep breath, controlled himself, and went, John following.

Mary Anne held the bedroom door open for them, and the two men entered, treading softly.

The women stood on either hand crying.  They had clothed the dead in white and crossed her hands upon her breast.  A linen covering had been pressed, nun-like, round the head and chin.  The wound was hidden, and the face lay framed in an oval of pure white, which gave it a strange severity.

Isaac bent over her.  Was this Bessie—­Bessie, the human, faulty, chattering creature—­whom he, her natural master, had been free to scold or caress at will?  At bottom he had always been conscious in regard to her of a silent but immeasurable superiority, whether as mere man to mere woman, or as the Christian to the sinner.

Now—­he dared scarcely touch her.  As she lay in this new-found dignity, the proud peace of her look intimidated, accused him—­would always accuse him till he too rested as she rested now, clad for the end.  Yet she had bade him kiss her—­and he obeyed her—­groaning within himself, incapable altogether, out of sheer abasement, of saying those words she had asked of him.  Then he sat down beside her, motionless.  John tried once or twice to speak to him, but Isaac shook his head impatiently.  At last the mere presence of Bolderfield in the room seemed to anger him.  He threw the old man such dark and restless looks that Mary Anne perceived them, and, with instinctive understanding, persuaded John to go.