She put her hand to her heart and almost smiled.
"It hasn't come home to me yet," she said. "I don't think it ever will."
He looked helplessly toward the pistol on the table. He knew it was all over and he should not use it.
"What must I do?" he said, in the same hoarse voice.
"Get up," she said, "an' come with me. I'm a old woman but my heart's strong, an' we've been poor before. We'll go away together an' leave it all behind—all the sorrow of it an' the sin an' the shame. The life I thought you lived, my dear, is to be lived yet. Theer's places where they wont know us an' where we can begin again. Get up and come with me."
He scarcely grasped what she meant.
"With you!" he repeated. "You want me to go now?"
"Yes," she answered, "for Christ's sake, my dear, now."
He began to see the meaning and possibility of her simple, woman's plan, and got up, ready to follow her. And then he found that the want of food and the long day had worn upon him so that he was weak. She put her arm beneath his and tried to support him.
"Lean on me, my dear," she said. "I'm stronger than you think."
They went out, leaving the empty room and the pistol on the table and the dim light burning. And then they had locked the gate and were outside with the few stars shining above and the great black Works looming up before them.
He stopped a moment to look back and up and remembered the key. Suddenly he raised it in his hand and
