“It does not matter,” he said, raising his head, laying his arm over his strong chest unconsciously, as if to shut in all complaint.  “I had an idle fancy that it would be good on this Christmas night to bare the secrets of crime and selfishness hidden in here to you,—­to suffer your pure eyes to probe the sorest depths:  I thought perhaps they would have a blessing power.  It was an idle fancy.  What is my want or crime to you?”

The answer came slowly, but it did come.

“Nothing to me.”

She tried to meet the gaunt face looking down on her with a proud sadness,—­did meet it at last with her meek eyes.

“No, nothing to you.  There is no need that I should stay longer, is there?  You made ready to meet me, and have gone through your part well.”

“It is no part.  I speak God’s truth to you as I can.”

“I know.  There is nothing more for us to say to each other In this world, then, except good-night.  Words—­polite words—­are bitterer than death, sometimes.  If ever we happen to meet, that courteous smile on your face will be enough to speak—­God’s truth for you.  Shall we say good-night now?”

“If you will.”

She drew farther into the shadow, leaning on a chair.

He stopped, some sudden thought striking him.

“I have a whim,” he said, dreamily, “that I would like to satisfy.  It would be a trifle to you:  will you grant it?—­for the sake of some old happy day, long ago?”

She put her hand up to her throat; then it fell again.

“Anything you wish, Stephen,” she said, gravely.

“Yes.  Come nearer, then, and let me see what I have lost.  A heart so cold and strong as yours need not fear inspection.  I have a fancy to look into it, for the last time.”

She stood motionless and silent.

“Come,”—­softly,—­“there is no hurt in your heart that fears detection?”

She came out into the full light, and stood before him, pushing back the hair from her forehead, that he might see every wrinkle, and the faded, lifeless eyes.  It was a true woman’s motion, remembering even then to scorn deception.  The light glowed brightly in her face, as the slow minutes ebbed without a sound:  she only saw his face in shadow, with the fitful gleam of intolerable meaning in his eyes.  Her own quailed and fell.

“Does it hurt you that I should even look at you?” he said, drawing back.  “Why, even the sainted dead suffer us to come near them after they have died to us,—­to touch their hands, to kiss their lips, to find what look they left in their faces for us.  Be patient, for the sake of the old time.  My whim is not satisfied yet.”

“I am patient.”

“Tell me something of yourself, to take with me when I go, for the last time.  Shall I think of you as happy in these days?”

“I am contented,”—­the words oozing from her white lips in the bitterness of truth.  “I asked God, that night, to show me my work; and I think He has shown it to me.  I do not complain.  It is a great work.”