Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/438

 was dead. The sight of the word "dead" and the name "Mary Downes" signed at the end, filled her with a sudden wave of bitterness that swept away all her sorrow. It was Mary who had stolen him from her like a thief. What could be more sinful than to steal from a mother a son for whom she had sacrificed her whole life? It was Mary who had destroyed him in the end, by filling his head with strange ideas, and leading him back to Africa. She was finished now with Mary. She would like to see Mary dead. And some day (perhaps it had happened already) Mary would receive the wandering letter and read, "I will even forgive Mary and try to treat her as if she were my own daughter." Then perhaps for a moment she would feel remorse over what she had done.

The letter lay crumpled in her work-stained hand. She began suddenly to weep, falling forward and burying her head in her arms beneath the glow of the gasdome, painted with wild-roses. She had suffered too long. . . . She kept seeing Philip as a little boy. . ..

After midnight, when she had ceased to weep, she rose, and, turning out the light, went up the creaking stairs of the home she had made her own by the labor of her own hands. . . the house (she thought bitterly) she had meant for Philip. She had done everything for his sake.

Alone in her own room, she thought, "I must not give in. I must go on. God will in the end reward me." The old spirit began to claim her.

She put on mourning (a thing her conscience had not permitted her to do when Naomi died), and in the Town people said, "Poor Emma Downes! She has