CHAPTER V.
The next morning Jerome arose at dawn, and crept down-stairs noiselessly on his bare feet, that he might not awake his mother.
However, still as he was, he had hardly crossed the threshold of the kitchen before his mother called to him from her bedroom, the door of which stood open.
"Who's that ?" called Ann Edwards, in a strained voice; and Jerome knew that she had a wild hope that it was his father's step she heard instead of his.

The boy caught his breath, hesitating a second, and his mother called again: "Who's that?
Who's that out in the kitchen ?" "It's only me," answered Jerome, with that most pitiful of apologies in his tone--the apology for presence and very existence in the stead of one more beloved.
His mother drew a great shuddering sigh.

"Come in here," she called out, harshly, and Jerome went into the bedroom and stood beside her bed.

The curtain was not drawn over the one window, and the little homely interior was full of the pale dusk of dawn.

This had been Ann Edwards's bridal chamber, and her children had been born there.