“The children! how dare you take their names in your mouth, you as is helping to ruin and shame them? I’ll not let you go now I’ve got you; oh, don’t think it! I’ll stick to you till I get a policeman.” “A policeman to me!” cried poor Jane, who, not knowing what mysterious powers the law might have, trembled more and more. “I’ve done nothing,” she said. “But them as you are with has done a deal,” cried Russell. “Where is that young man? Oh, I know-- I know what he’s been and done. I have took an oath on my Bible that I’ll track him out. If I’m to be driven from my place and my dear children for Madam’s sake, she shall just pay for it, I can tell you. You thought I’d put up with it and do nothing, but a worm will turn. I’ve got it in my power to publish her shame, and I’ll do it. I know a deal more than I knew when I told master of her goings-on. But now I’ve got you I’ll stick to you, and them as you’re with, and I’ll have my revenge,” Russell cried, her wild eyes flaming, her haggard cheeks flushing; “I’ll have my revenge. Ah!” She paused here with a cry of consternation, alarm, dismay, for there stepped out of a shop hard by, Madam herself, and laid a hand suddenly upon her arm. “Russell,” she said, “I am sorry they have sent you away. I know you love the children.” At this a convulsive movement passed across her face, which sent through the trembling, awe-stricken woman a sympathetic shudder. They were one in this deprivation, though they were enemies. “You have always hated me, I do not know why: but you love the children. I would not have removed you from them. I have written to Miss Rosalind to bid her have you back when--when she is calmer. And you that have done me so much harm, what do you want with me?” said Madam, looking with the pathetic smile which threw such a strange light upon her utterly pale face, upon this ignorant pursuer. “I’ve come-- I’ve come”--she gasped, and then stood trembling, unable to articulate, holding herself up by the grasp she had taken with such different intentions of Jane’s arm, and gazing with her hollow eyes with a sort of fascination upon the lady whom at last she had hunted down. “I think she is fainting,” Madam said. “Whatever she wants, she has outdone her strength.” There was a compassion in the tone, which, in Russell’s weakened state, went through and through her. Her mistress took her gently by the other arm, and led her into the shop she had just left. Here they brought her wine and something to eat, of which she had the greatest need. “My poor woman,” said Madam, “your search for me was vain, for Mr. John Trevanion knows where to find me at any moment. You have done me all the harm one woman could do another; what could you desire more? But I forgive you for my children’s sake. Go back, and Rosalind will take you again, because you love them; and take care of my darlings, Russell,” she said, with that ineffable smile of anguish; “say no ill to them of their mother.”