And open
our eyes that we may gather strength to realise what our dear children
have escaped by being taken home to Thee--the sin, the trouble, the
anxiety, the disappointment--and make us thankful to bear them in their
stead, and give us grace to look forward to our happy meeting and
reunion in the Better Land.”

Then she rose and bent over the dead boy. “Dear Bobby!” she murmured, as she kissed the cold brow, and placed the
white blossoms in his hands and round his head. “Good-bye! I know how
happy you must be now, in company with the spirits of all those whom we
have loved and who have gone home before us--how grateful you must feel
to the dear Redeemer Who has called you so early--but don’t forget your
poor mother upon earth! Pray for her, Bobby,--never cease to ask our
dear Lord to send her comfort and peace and joy in believing. For His
own dear sake. Amen!”

When she turned again, the Baroness’s cheeks were wet with tears and
she was stretching forth her arms towards her. “Oh!” she gasped, as Margaret reached her side, “I am a godless
woman--I am a godless woman!”

“No! no! my dear friend, we are none of us godless,” replied Margaret,
“we may think we are, but God knows better! We may forsake Him, but He
never forsakes us! We should never be saved if we waited till we wanted
to be so. It is _He_ Who wants _us_--that is our great safeguard! He
wanted our two dear children--not to spite us, but to draw us after
them. Try to look at it in that light, and then Bobby’s death will
prove your greatest gain.”

“I am a godless woman,” repeated the Baroness, “and this is my
punishment!” pointing to the bed. “I loved him best of all! My ’eart is
broken!”

“So much the better, if it was a hard heart,” rejoined Margaret,
smiling. “Who was it that said, ‘If your heart is broken, give the
pieces to Christ and He will mend it again’? Never think of Bobby, dear
Madame Gobelli, except as with Christ--walking with Him, talking with
Him, learning of Him and growing in grace and the love of God daily! Never disassociate the two memories, and in a little while you would
hate yourself if you could separate them again. God bless you! I must
go back to my husband now!”

“You will come again?” said the Baroness. “I am afraid I shall have no time! We sail for India on Saturday, but I
shall not forget you. Good-bye, Bobby,” she repeated, with a last look
at the corpse, “remember your mother and me in your prayers.”

As Miss Wynward let her out of the Red House, she remarked,

“I could never have believed that anyone could have had so much
influence over her ladyship as you have, Mrs. Pullen. I hope you will
come again.”

“I shall not be able to do so. But Madame Gobelli will have you to talk
to her! You live here altogether, do you not?”

“I have lived here for many years, but I am on the point of leaving. Bobby was my only tie to the Red House, or I should have gone long ago.”

“But now that the Baroness is so helpless surely you will delay your
departure until she no longer needs you.”

“I shall not leave her until she has secured a better woman in my
stead. But to tell you the truth, I am going to be married, Mrs.
Pullen, and I consider my first duty is towards my future husband and
his parents who are very old!”

“Oh! doubtless! May I ask his name?”

“Captain Hill! He lives in the next house to this--Stevenage! You are
surprised, perhaps, that a man who has been in the army should marry a
poor governess like myself. That is his goodness. I know that I am worn
and faded and no longer young--thirty-three on my last birthday--but
he is good enough to care for me all the more for the troubles I have
passed through. Mine has been a chequered life, Mrs. Pullen, but I have
told Captain Hill everything, and he still wishes to make me his wife! I ought to be a happy woman for the future, ought I not?”

“Indeed yes,” said Margaret, heartily, “and I sincerely hope that you
may be so! But I can’t help thinking of poor Madame Gobelli! Is the
Baron good to her?”

“Pretty well!” answered Miss Wynward, “but he is very stolid and
unsympathetic! It is strange to think that her heart must have been
bound up in that boy, and yet at times she was positively cruel to him!”

“It has all been permitted for some good purpose,” said Margaret, as
she bade her farewell, “perhaps her remorse and self-accusation are the
only things which would have brought her down upon her knees.”

She returned home considerably saddened by what she had seen, but in
three days she was to accompany her husband to India, and in the bustle
of preparation, and the joy of knowing that she was not to be separated
from him again, her heart was comforted and at peace. Never once during
that time did she give one thought to Harriet Brandt. Miss Wynward had
hardly mentioned her name, and no one seemed to know where she had
gone. The girl had passed out of their lives altogether. Margaret only regretted one thing in leaving England--that she had not
seen Anthony Pennell again. Colonel Pullen had called twice at his
chambers, but had each time found him from home. Margaret wanted to put
in a good word for the Baroness with him. She thought perhaps that he
might see her, after a while, and speak a few words of comfort to her. But she was obliged to be content with writing her wishes in a farewell
letter. She little knew how hardened Anthony Pennell felt, at that
moment, against anyone who had treated the woman he loved in so harsh a
manner. Harriet Brandt spent the time, after her lover had left her to think
over and decide upon their mutual fate, in walking up and down the
room. She was like a restless animal; she could not stay two moments
in the same place. Even when night fell, and the inhabitants of the
Langham Hotel had retired to rest, she still kept pacing up and down
the room, without thinking of undressing herself or seeking repose,
whilst her conscience wrestled in warfare with her inclinations. Her
thoughts took her far, far back to the earliest remembrance of which
her mind was capable. She thought of her hard, unfeeling, indifferent
father--of her gross, flabby, sensual mother--and shuddered at the
remembrance! What had _she_ done?--she said to herself--wherein had
_she_ sinned, that she should have been cursed with such progenitors? How had they _dared_ to bring her into the world, an innocent yet
hapless child of sin--the inheritor of their evil propensities--of
their lust, their cruelty, their sensuality, their gluttony--and worst
of all, the fatal heritage that made her a terror and a curse to her
fellow-creatures? How dared they? _How dared they?_ Why had God’s
vengeance not fallen upon them before they had completed their cruel
work, or having accomplished it, why did He not let her perish with
them--so that the awful power with which they had imbued her, might
have been prevented from harming others?