For a moment we remained staring at one another without speaking. Her hair was disheveled, her face dirty, tear-stained, and irregularly red. Her expression at the sight of me was pure astonishment. I thought she was about to say something, and then she had darted away out of the house again. “I say, Puss!” I said. “Puss!” I followed her out of the door. “Puss! What’s the matter? Where’s Nettie?” She vanished round the corner of the house. I hesitated, perplexed whether I should pursue her. What did it all mean? Then I heard some one upstairs. “Willie!” cried the voice of Mrs. Stuart. “Is that you?” “Yes,” I answered. “Where’s every one? Where’s Nettie? I want to have a talk with her.” She did not answer, but I heard her dress rustle as she moved. I Judged she was upon the landing overhead. I paused at the foot of the stairs, expecting her to appear and come down. Suddenly came a strange sound, a rush of sounds, words jumbled and hurrying, confused and shapeless, borne along upon a note of throaty distress that at last submerged the words altogether and ended in a wail. Except that it came from a woman’s throat it was exactly the babbling sound of a weeping child with a grievance. “I can’t,” she said, “I can’t,” and that was all I could distinguish. It was to my young ears the strangest sound conceivable from a kindly motherly little woman, whom I had always thought of chiefly as an unparalleled maker of cakes. It frightened me. I went upstairs at once in a state of infinite alarm, and there she was upon the landing, leaning forward over the top of the chest of drawers beside her open bedroom door, and weeping. I never saw such weeping. One thick strand of black hair had escaped, and hung with a spiral twist down her back; never before had I noticed that she had gray hairs. As I came up upon the landing her voice rose again. “Oh that I should have to tell you, Willie! Oh that I should have to tell you!” She dropped her head again, and a fresh gust of tears swept all further words away. I said nothing, I was too astonished; but I drew nearer to her, and waited. . . . I never saw such weeping; the extraordinary wetness of her dripping handkerchief abides with me to this day. “That I should have lived to see this day!” she wailed. “I had rather a thousand times she was struck dead at my feet.” I began to understand. “Mrs. Stuart,” I said, clearing my throat; “what has become of Nettie?” “That I should have lived to see this day!” she said by way of reply. I waited till her passion abated. There came a lull. I forgot the weapon in my pocket. I said nothing, and suddenly she stood erect before me, wiping her swollen eyes. “Willie,” she gulped, “she’s gone!” “Nettie?” “Gone! . . . Run away. . . . Run away from her home. Oh, Willie, Willie! The shame of it! The sin and shame of it!” She flung herself upon my shoulder, and clung to me, and began again to wish her daughter lying dead at our feet.