She waved her hand toward a farm-house, and walked swiftly away as if she would seek shelter there. And the last that he saw of her, was her black garments like a speck on the murky road, seeming to walk in between two great thunderous clouds, and to be swallowed up. Margaret kept hurrying on, so absorbed in her musings that she passed the farm-house, where she might have found a hospitable shelter for the night, and hurried down the lonely road away from the river, where the rising wind waited for her at sudden corners, and the black clouds descended nearer with the darkening night. And she hurried on faster, and her eyes pierced the gathering blackness, with the sad and weary gaze of one whose heart carries a secret sorrow, and tears fell slowly from them, which blurred the way, and blotted out the lowering sky. Where had she wandered to? There was no friendly light from any cottage window to guide her, no sheep-bell or halloo of herd-boy. Her clothes were heavy with moisture, and she was very tired and very desolate. How her head ached, and her arms! Oh! if she could just be so blessed as to sink upon some kind woman's bed this very moment, and sleep! Perhaps she would fall in some lime-pit, or ditch, or into the slimy lock of some canal, and die miserably. Who would weep for her if she died? Who cared for Margaret Walsingham? And the thought of her utter desolation overcome her, as weariness, hunger, and storm had failed to do. She crouched down beneath a furze-bush, and, resting her hot and beating head upon her hands, wept, poor soul! And then came unconsciousness and utter oblivion. * * * * * "I declare, John, she knows me! Here, take a sup o' this barley-water, my lamb. Dear heart! she's sensible once more. Ain't there another drop than this, John? Mayhap it's plenty." Margaret looked with languid eyes upon the rugged figure of a man, clad in dingy red-dust habiliments, who was standing between her and a small window, with his head sunk in a curious way between his hands. His brawny shoulders were heaving, and his rough shock of hair trembled like sea-grass in a hurricane, while a gurgling sort of noise issued from him. Had a fit of laughter seized him, or was the man crying? Whose bed was she lying in, hung with red calico curtains? Where had she seen that figure in the clay-colored smock before? And then Margaret saw a sallow-faced woman of spare figure bending over her, with a tin cup in her hand, and a glistening channel down each cheek. "Mrs. Doane!" she breathed, in wonder. "There I knowed it! Hark to that, John!" cried the woman, with an exultant chuckle, which threatened to be strangled by a sob. "Didn't she call me by name, the blessed lamb?" She raised the blessed lamb in her arms, who, truth to say, scarcely recognized herself by such an unwonted title, and held the tin cup to her lips.