"The woman who called herself Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame." "Who called herself Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame? I've heard something about some woman, but nothing that was at all plain. Tell me who she was, and how she came to call herself by his name." The doctor told, as succinctly as he could, the story of the woman he had picked up by the wayside; how, though he had found her helpless, she had proved herself to be more than a match for them all. Margaret listened with eyes which grew wider and wider open. When he had finished she broke into exclamation. "Then Nannie is right; it was through you that it all happened." He resorted to his favourite trick--he stroked his bristly chin, as if the action assisted him in the search for an appropriate answer. "In a measure, young lady--in a measure. My original intention was to perform an act of mercy. You would not have had me leave the creature there in the night to perish. The whole business is but an illustration of the truth of how great events from little causes spring." "To give her assistance, shelter--that was right enough; but, according to your own statement, you were responsible for that mockery of marriage." The rubbing of the bristles went on with redoubled energy. "I might say something on that point, but I'll not; I'll just admit I'm guilty. And I'll do it the more willingly because there hasn't been a day on which I haven't told myself that if there's a creature on God's earth that needed well and regular hiding that creature's me, because of what I did that night. I did a great wrong, a great folly, and a great sin. Margaret, though I am old and you are young, I am ready, if you wish it--and you'll be right to wish it--to humble myself in the dust at your feet. My only consolation is that in His infinite mercy, ultimately, there may be forgiveness even for me." He paused, then added, with in his voice and manner a suggestion of utter self-abasement which was in itself pathetic, "And the worst I've still to add". "The worst?" She shrank from him, with what seemed to be a gesture of involuntary and almost unconscious repulsion. "Ay, the very worst. Only don't draw yourself from me like that, lassie--for the love of Christ; for I'm but a poor old man that's sinned, and that's very near his end, and that would do all he can to repair his sin before death has him by the throat." "I--I didn't mean to be unkind, but--what were you going to say?"