Late next evening Dr. Merrick reached Perugia.  He drove straight from the station to the dingy flat in the morose palazzo.  At the door of his son’s room, Herminia met him, clad from head to foot in white, as she had sat by the bedside.  Tears blinded her eyes; her face was wan; her mien terribly haggard.

“And my son?” the Doctor asked, with a hushed breath of terror.

“He died half an hour ago,” Herminia gasped out with an effort.

“But he married you before he died?” the father cried, in a tone of profound emotion.  “He did justice to his child?—­he repaired his evil?”

“He did not,” Herminia answered, in a scarcely audible voice.  “He was stanch to the end to his lifelong principles.”

“Why not?” the father asked, staggering.  “Did he see my telegram?”

“Yes,” Herminia answered, numb with grief, yet too proud to prevaricate.  “But I advised him to stand firm; and he abode by my decision.”

The father waved her aside with his hands imperiously.  “Then I have done with you,” he exclaimed.  “I am sorry to seem harsh to you at such a moment.  But it is your own doing.  You leave me no choice.  You have no right any longer in my son’s apartments.”

XII.

No position in life is more terrible to face than that of the widowed mother left alone in the world with her unborn baby.  When the child is her first one,—­when, besides the natural horror and agony of the situation, she has also to confront the unknown dangers of that new and dreaded experience,—­her plight is still more pitiable.  But when the widowed mother is one who has never been a wife,—­when in addition to all these pangs of bereavement and fear, she has further to face the contempt and hostility of a sneering world, as Herminia had to face it,—­then, indeed, her lot becomes well-nigh insupportable; it is almost more than human nature can bear up against.  So Herminia found it.  She might have died of grief and loneliness then and there, had it not been for the sudden and unexpected rousing of her spirit of opposition by Dr. Merrick’s words.  That cruel speech gave her the will and the power to live.  It saved her from madness.  She drew herself up at once with an injured woman’s pride, and, facing her dead Alan’s father with a quick access of energy,—­

“You are wrong,” she said, stilling her heart with one hand.  “These rooms are mine,—­my own, not dear Alan’s.  I engaged them myself, for my own use, and in my own name, as Herminia Barton.  You can stay here if you wish.  I will not imitate your cruelty by refusing you access to them; but if you remain here, you must treat me at least with the respect that belongs to my great sorrow, and with the courtesy due to an English lady.”