‘Ah, madam! have pity on me and listen. We had been married but six months, and we loved each other, ah! so dearly. He was a clerk in a city firm, and his employers sent him over to Ireland on business. We could not bear to part—we went together. In order to return to England we embarked in a small sailing vessel, and we had a fearful storm in crossing. The sea ran mountains high, and the women on board were assembled together in a deck cabin. The men to whom they belonged kept looking in every now and then to tell them how we were getting on, and every time the door of the cabin was opened, the sea rushed in and wetted them. They grew impatient, I the most of all; and when my dear husband, in his anxiety lest I should be frightened at our danger, put his head in for the third or fourth time I called out, saying, ‘Go away, Edward, and _don’t come back again_.’ And he went away, and he never did come back. Ah, Heaven! have mercy upon me!’ ‘My poor girl! how did it happen?’ ‘He was washed off the deck, madam, by a huge wave that nearly swamped the ship—so they told me afterwards. But I never saw him more! The glimpse I had of his bonnie face as it was thrust in at the half-opened door, beaming with love and anxiety, was the last glimpse I was ever to have in this world—and I sent him to his death. I said, ‘Go away, and don’t come back’—and he never came back!—he never came back!’ Her grief was so violent I almost thought she would have swooned at my feet. I tried to direct her thoughts in another direction. ‘Have you no friends to go to, Mrs Graham?’ ‘None of my own, madam. I was a soldier’s orphan from the Home when Edward married me. And I could not go to his.’ ‘How did you lose your baby?’ ‘It died of my grief, I suppose; it only lived a few days. And then they advised me at the hospital to get a situation as wet nurse; and I thought the care of an infant might soothe me a little. But my sorrow is past cure.’ ‘You have bad dreams at night, I fear.’ ‘Oh! such awful dreams! He is always calling me—calling me to go to him, and I can find him nowhere; or else I am in the ship again, and see that which I never did see—the cruel wave that washed him from me!’ ‘Do you feel strong enough to take the child again?’ She had risen by this time, and was, comparatively speaking, calm. She held out her arms mechanically. I put the baby in them, and then stooped and kissed her swollen eyes and burning forehead. ‘I will not discuss this subject with you further to-day,’ I said; ‘but you have found a friend. Go on with your walk, child, and may God comfort you. I am glad you have told me the story of your grief.’