"I should like him to see it when he comes," she said softly, and a wondrous look of love dawned in her pale face, causing a strange pang in her mother's breast as she stood watching her and evidently trying to nerve herself for the disclosure she was about to make, one which in her anger she had thought easy, but which now became terribly difficult. "If you cannot forgive me, mother dear," said the girl pleadingly, "let me have my babe: for I love it, I love it," she whispered to herself, and the soft dawn of a young mother's yearning for her offspring grew warmer in her face. "You will never see it more," exclaimed the woman at last, in a hard harsh voice, though she trembled and shrank from her daughter's eyes as she spoke. "It will never lie by your side for him to gaze upon your shame and his: the child is dead." A piteous cry broke from the young mother's breast, and in her bitter grief she lay sobbing violently, till nature interposed, and, exhausted, weak and helpless, she sank into a heavy sleep with the tears still wet upon her face. "It is better so--it is better so," muttered Mrs Riversley, as she stood gazing down at her child. "It will nearly kill her, but, God forgive me, it must be done." She stood watching in the shaded room till a slight noise below made her start, and hastily glancing at her daughter to see that she slept, she stole on tiptoe from the bedside, and crept downstairs to where a sharp angular-looking woman of four or five and twenty was standing in the little drawing-room with her shawl over one arm, and her bonnet swinging from the strings. She looked flushed with exercise, and her hair about her temples was wet with perspiration, while her boots were covered with dust. "Well?" "Well," said the woman, with a rude, impatient gesture. "You must give me a glass of wine. I'm dead beat. It's quite four miles there, and as hot as hot." "How dare you speak to me in that insolent way, Jane?" said Mrs Riversley angrily. "Oh," said the woman sharply, "this is no time far ma'aming and bowing and scraping; servants and missuses is all human beings together when they're in trouble, and folks don't make no difference between them." "But you might speak in a more respectful way, Jane," said Mrs Riversley, biting her lips, and looking pale. "Dessay I might," said the woman; "but this ain't the time. Well, you want to know about the--" "Hush! for Heaven's sake, hush," exclaimed Mrs Riversley, glancing round. "Oh, there's no one near us," said the woman with a mocking laugh; "not even the police, so you needn't be afraid. It ain't murder." "Did you find her?" said Mrs Riversley. "Pray tell me, Jane. I spoke rather harshly just now, but I could not help it, I was so troubled and upset." "Dessay you were; dessay everybody else is," said the woman roughly. "How's Miss Mary?" "Better, Jane; _but_ you must never see her again. She must never know." "Did you tell her it was dead?" said the woman sharply.