From the street below rose the hum and bustle of city life; from the room that had been Giovanni’s, the voice of the child, still singing at her play.  In at the open window streamed the thick yellow sunshine of the August afternoon, and a great droning blue fly buzzed upon the pane.

Teddy noted every sound; watched the motes dancing in the sunshine, the fly bouncing up and down the little window, the movements of the cat, who, rising from her nap, stretched every limb separately, yawned, lazily lapped at her saucer of milk, and then, seating herself in the patch of lurid sunshine, with her tail curled round her fore-paws, blinked drowsily for a few minutes, and then dozed off again.

But, whether he listened or whether he looked, it was but ear and eye that noted these familiar and homely sounds or sights.  The mind still journeyed on and on in that weary journey without beginning or end; that dull, heavy tramp through black night, with no hope of ever reaching morning; that vain flight from a pain not for one moment to be forgotten or left behind; that numb consciousness of an evil, that, wait as we will, must sooner or later be met and recognized.

A long hour passed, and Mrs. Ginniss suddenly arose and confronted her son.

“If iver I larnt ye any thin’, ye black-hearted b’y, what wor it?”

Teddy raised his heavy eyes to his mother’s face, but made no answer.

“Worn’t it to search iver an’ always for the chance to do a good turn to him as has done all for ‘yees that yer own father could, an’ more?  Worn’t that the lesson I’ve struv to larn ye this four year back, Teddy Ginniss?”

“Yes, mother,” said the boy in a low voice.

“An’ haven’t I towld ye, that, so as ye did it, my blessin’ was wid yees, an’ so as ye turned yer back on it my cuss ‘ud folly yees, an’ the cuss uv God an’ all his saints and angels?”

“Yes, mother.”

“An it’s yersilf that’s tuck heed uv me words, an’ done yer best to kape ’em; isn’t it, me fine lad?” pursued the mother with bitter irony.

“I did always, mother, till"-began Teddy humbly; but his mother angrily interrupted him.

“Alluz till ye got the chance to do contrairy, an’ plaze yersilf at his expense.  Sure, an’ it wor mighty perlite uv yees to wait that long, an’ it’s greatly obleeged to yees he shud be.”

She waited a moment, standing before the boy, who, still seated droopingly in the chair where he had first fallen, his heavy eyes looking straight before him, offered neither reply nor remonstrance; while his mother, setting her hands upon her hips, looked scornfully at him a moment longer, and then exclaimed,—­

“An’ have ye niver a word to say for yersilf, ye white-livered coward?  Is there niver anudder lie on yer tongue like thim ye found so handy this twelvemonth back?  Git out uv me sight, ye spalpeen, and out uv me doors!  Go find them as’ll kape yees to stale rich folks’ children, an’ thin lie to the mother as bore yees, and the kind masther as tried to make a gintleman out uv a thafe.  Begone, I say, Teddy Ginniss, and quit pizenin’ the air of an honest woman’s room wid yer prisince!”