“Scorn you!” cried Lucy, angrily.  “He who has behaved so wickedly!”

Mrs. Berry attempted to rise.  “I may as well go at once,” she whimpered.  “If I see him I shall only be disgracin’ of myself.  I feel it all on my side already.  Did ye mark him, my dear?  I know I was vexin’ to him at times, I was.  Those big men are so touchy about their dignity—­nat’ral.  Hark at me!  I’m goin’ all soft in a minute.  Let me leave the house, my dear.  I daresay it was good half my fault.  Young women don’t understand men sufficient—­not altogether—­and I was a young woman then; and then what they goes and does they ain’t quite answerable for:  they, feels, I daresay, pushed from behind.  Yes.  I’ll go.  I’m a frump.  I’ll go.  ‘Tain’t in natur’ for me to sleep in the same house.”

Lucy laid her hands on Mrs. Berry’s shoulders, and forcibly fixed her in her seat.  “Leave baby, naughty woman?  I tell you he shall come to you, and fall on his knees to you and beg your forgiveness.”

“Berry on his knees!”

“Yes.  And he shall beg and pray you to forgive him.”

“If you get more from Martin Berry than breath-away words, great’ll be my wonder!” said Mrs. Berry.

“We will see,” said Lucy, thoroughly determined to do something for the good creature that had befriended her.

Mrs. Berry examined her gown.  “Won’t it seem we’re runnin’ after him?” she murmured faintly.

“He is your husband, Mrs. Berry.  He may be wanting to come to you now.”

“Oh!  Where is all I was goin’ to say to that man when we met.”  Mrs. Berry ejaculated.  Lucy had left the room.

On the landing outside the door Lucy met a lady dressed in black, who stopped her and asked if she was Richard’s wife, and kissed her, passing from her immediately.  Lucy despatched a message for Austin, and related the Berry history.  Austin sent for the great man and said:  “Do you know your wife is here?” Before Berry had time to draw himself up to enunciate his longest, he was requested to step upstairs, and as his young mistress at once led the way, Berry could not refuse to put his legs in motion and carry the stately edifice aloft.

Of the interview Mrs. Berry gave Lucy a slight sketch that night.  “He began in the old way, my dear, and says I, a true heart and plain words, Martin Berry.  So there he cuts himself and his Johnson short, and down he goes—­down on his knees.  I never could ’a believed it.  I kep my dignity as a woman till I see that sight, but that done for me.  I was a ripe apple in his arms ’fore I knew where I was.  There’s something about a fine man on his knees that’s too much for us women.  And it reely was the penitent on his two knees, not the lover on his one.  If he mean it!  But ah! what do you think he begs of me, my dear?.—­not to make it known in the house just yet!  I can’t, I can’t say that look well.”

Lucy attributed it to his sense of shame at his conduct, and Mrs. Berry did her best to look on it in that light.