“Will you come this way, Mr. Parr?” Mr. Bentley said, indicating the door of the bedroom.

Alison followed.  Her eyes, wet with unheeded tears, had never left Mr. Bentley’s face.  She put out her hand to him . . . .

Eldon Parr had halted abruptly.  He knew from Alison the circumstances in which his son had died, and how he had been brought hither to this house, but the sight of the woman beside the bed fanned into flame his fury against a world which had cheated him, by such ignominious means, of his dearest wish.  He grew white with sudden passion.

“What is she doing here?” he demanded.

Kate Marcy, who had not seemed to hear his entrance, raised up to him a face from which all fear had fled, a face which, by its suggestive power, compelled him to realize the absolute despair clutching now at his own soul, and against which he was fighting wildly, hopelessly.  It was lying in wait for him, With hideous patience, in the coming watches of the night.  Perhaps he read in the face of this woman whom he had condemned to suffer all degradation, and over whom he was now powerless, something which would ultimately save her from the hell now yawning for him; a redeeming element in her grief of which she herself were not as yet conscious, a light shining in the darkness of her soul which in eternity would become luminous.  And he saw no light for him—­He thrashed in darkness.  He had nothing, now, to give, no power longer to deprive.  She had given all she possessed, the memorial of her kind which would outlast monuments.

It was Alison who crossed the room swiftly.  She laid her hand protectingly on Kate Marcy’s shoulder, and stooped, and kissed her.  She turned to her father.

“It is her right,” she said.  “He belonged to her, not to us.  And we must take her home with us.

“No,” answered Kate Marcy’ “I don’t want to go.  I wouldn’t live,” she added with unexpected intensity, “with him.”

“You would live with me,” said Alison.

“I don’t want to live!” Kate Marcy got up from the chair with an energy they had not thought her to possess, a revival of the spirit which had upheld her when she had contended, singly, with a remorseless world.  She addressed herself to Eldon Parr.  “You took him from me, and I was a fool to let you.  He might have saved me and saved himself.  I listened to you when you told me lies as to how it would ruin him . . . .  Well,—­I had him you never did.”

The sudden, intolerable sense of wrong done to her love, the swift anger which followed it, the justness of her claim of him who now lay in the dignity of death clothed her—­who in life had been crushed and blotted out—­with a dignity not to be gainsaid.  In this moment of final self-assertion she became the dominating person in the room, knew for once the birthright of human worth.  They watched her in silence as she turned and gave one last, lingering look at the features of the dead; stretched out her hand towards them, but did not touch them . . . and then went slowly towards the door.  Beside Alison she stopped.