"Yes--is she here!" "No." "Do you know where she is?" "No, I don't." Dorian's hopes fell. "But tell me what you know about her--you know something." "It was the latter part of August when she came to us. She had walked from town, an' she said she was wanting a place to work. As she was used to farm life, she preferred to work at a country home, she said." "Was she a dark-haired, rosy-cheeked girl?" "Her hair was dark, but there was no roses in her cheeks. There might have been once. I was glad to say yes to her for I needed help bad. Of course, it was strange, this girl comin' from the city a' wanting to work in the country. It's usually the other way." "Yes; I suppose so." "So I was a little suspicious." "Of what?" "That she hadn't come to work at all; though I'll say that she did her best. I tried to prevent her, but she worked right up to the last." "To the last? I don't understand?" "Don't you know that she was to be sick? That she came here to be sick?" "To be sick?" Dorian was genuinely at loss to understand. "At first I called her a cheat, and threatened to send her away; but the poor child pleaded so to stay that I hadn't the heart to turn her out. She had no where to go, she was a long way from home, an' so I let her stay, an' we did the best for her." Dorian, in the simplicity of his mind, did not yet realize what the woman was talking about. He let her continue. "We had one of the best doctors in the city 'tend her, an' I did the nursing myself which I consider was as good as any of the new-fangled trained nurses can do; but the poor girl had been under a strain so long that the baby died soon after it was born." "The baby?" gasped Dorian. "Yes," went on the woman, all unconsciously that the listener had not fully understood. "Yes, it didn't live long, which, I suppose, in such cases, is a blessing." Dorian stared at the woman, then in a dazed way, he looked about the plain farm-house furnishings, some details of which strangely impressed him. The woman went on talking, which seemed easy for her, now she had fairly started; but Dorian did not hear all she said. One big fact was forcing itself into his brain, to the exclusion of all minor realities. "She left a month ago," Dorian heard the woman say when again he was in a condition to listen. "We did our best to get her to stay, for we had become fond of her. Somehow, she got the notion that the scoundrel who had betrayed her had found her hiding place, an' she was afraid. So she left." "Where did she go? Did she tell you?" "No; she wouldn't say. The fact is, she didn't know herself. I'm sure of that. She just seemed anxious to hide herself again. Poor girl." The woman wiped a tear away with the corner of her apron.