“Of course I keep all the same.  I would feel very lonely if I hadn’t thy room and Harry’s to look into.  They are not always empty.  Sometimes I feel as if you might be there, and Oh but I am happy, when I do so!  I just say a ‘good morning’ or a ‘good night’ and shut the door.  It is a queer thing, John.”

“What is queer, mother?”

“That feeling of ‘presence.’  But whatever brings thee here at this time of night? and it raining, too, as if there was an ark to float!”

“Well, mother, there is in a way.  I am in trouble.”

“I was fearing it.”

“Why?”

“I heard tell that Jane was at Harlow.  What is she doing there, my dear?”

“Dr. Sewell told me something about Jane.”

“Oh!  He told you at last, did he!  He ought to have told you long ago.”

“Has he known it a long time?”

“He has—­if he knows anything.”

“And you—­mother?”

“I was not sure as long as he kept quiet, and hummed and ha’ed about it.  But I said enough to Jane on two occasions to let her know I suspected treachery both to her own life and soul and to thee.”

“And to my unborn children, mother.”

“To be sure.  It is a sin and a shame, both ways.  It is that!  The last time she was here, she told me as a bit of news, that Mary Fairfax had died that morning of cancer, and I said, ‘Not she.  She killed herself.’  Then Jane said, ‘You are mistaken, mother, she died of cancer.’  I replied a bit hotly, ’She gave herself cancer.  I have no doubt of that, and so she died as she deserved to die.’  And when Jane said, ’No one could give herself cancer,’ I told her plain and square that she did it by refusing the children God sent her to bear and to bring up for Him, taking as a result the pangs of cancer.  She knew very well what I meant.”

“What did she say?”

“Not a word.  She was too angry to speak wisely and wise enough not to speak at all.”

“Well, mother?”

“I said much more of the same kind.  I told her that no one ever abused Nature and got off scot-free. ’Why-a!’ I said, ’it is thus and so in the simplest matters.  If you or I eat too much we have a sick headache or dyspepsia.  If you dance or ride too much your heart suffers, and you know what happened to Abram Bowles with drinking too much.  It is much worse,’ I went on, ’if a tie is broken it is death to one or the other or both, especially if it is done again and again.  Nature maltreated will send in her bill.  That is sure as life and death, and the longer it is delayed, the heavier the bill.’  I went on and told her that Mary Fairfax had been married seventeen years and had never borne but one child.  She had long credit, I said, but Nature sent in her bill at last, and Mary had it to settle.  Now, John, I did my duty, didn’t I?”

“You did, mother.  What did Jane say?”