Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/190

180 was coming. The men were carrying something; they were bringing it to her. A friend tried to pull her away, but she would not move. Then the men came to where she stood, and laid their burden down before her—drowned, white, cold—the other woman's child! She started forward, as though to take the body in her arms; then with a strong effort controlled herself. She laid her hand instead upon his wet forehead, and heard a girl's heart-broken scream behind her. "Take Miss Geraldine away," she said. "What has happened?"

The men told her they had found the body in the river—it must have been there all night. They were honest fellows, and spoke with a sob in their throats; but Lady Osborne did not cry. "My child," she whispered, "had no mother to weep over him. Neither shall this. My child, unhonoured, was buried away. So shall this one be." She bent, and took one of the limp hands in hers.

"You fought hard for your life," she said, looking at the torn and blood-marked fingers; "fought hard. You were a coward to go from your troubles, and a coward to seek to get back from the death you feared more. Never an