“I think I went utterly mad then.  I can remember putting my lips to the dent on the little ruffled pillow, where his head had lain, and swearing that I would have my revenge.

“That night turned me to stone; every tender feeling seemed to petrify.  When I learned that Allen was soon to marry the woman for whom he had cast me off, and that my boy was to have a new mother to teach him to hate me, it did not grieve me; I had lost all power of suffering; but it woke up a legion of fiends where my heart used to beat, and I bided my time.  Happy women in happy homes think me a monster.  With their husbands’ arms around them, and their babies prattling at their knees, they bear my wrongs so meekly, and shudder at my depravity.  When I thought of Allen, who was my first and last and only love, giving my place to some other woman, who was no more worthy than I knew myself to be; and of the baby, who had slept on my heart, and was so dear because he had his father’s eyes and his father’s brown curls, growing up to deny and condemn his innocent but disgraced mother, it was more than I could bear.  I was not insane; oh, no!  But I was possessed by more than seven devils; and revenge was all this world could give me.  My husband’s family had ruined me; so I would spoil their match a second time.

“The wedding was to be very private, but I bribed a servant and got into the house, and stood behind the damask curtains.  Allen’s mother and sister came in, leading my boy; and they were so close to me I could see the long silky lashes resting against my baby’s brow, as his great brown eyes looked wonderingly at a horseshoe of roses dangling from the chandelier.  Then my husband, my handsome husband—­ my darling’s father, walked in, with the bride on his arm, and the minister met them, saying:  ‘Dearly beloved—.’  I ceased to be a woman then, I was a fury, a wild beast—­and two minutes later my darlings were mine once more, safe from that other woman—­dead at my feet.  Then the ball I aimed at my own breast missed its destination.  I fell on my slaughtered idols; seeing in a bloody mist the wide eyes of my baby boy, and the mangled face of the husband whose kiss was the only heaven I shall ever know.  I meant to die with them, but I failed; so they sent me here.  That was years ago; but I was a stone until that day in the chapel, when you sang my Max’s song, ’By-and-By’.”

There was a brief silence, and Beryl’s voice wavered as she said very gently: 

“Your trials were fiery; and though the crime was frightfully black, God judges us according to the natures we are born with, and the temptations that betray us; and He forgives all, if we are true penitents and throw ourselves trustingly on His mercy.  Now take this powder; it will make you sleep.”

“Will you stay with me?  I shall not trouble anybody much longer.  Say a prayer for my sinful soul, that is going down into the eternal night.”

“Let us pray together, that your pardoned soul may find blessed and eternal peace.”