She shot the bolt back, turned the key with resolute hand. She could not imagine what had happened that would account for this unusual disturbance, but whatever it might be, she braced herself to meet it. On the doorstep stood the shivering figure of a girl, clad only in her night-dress. She was shivering with excitement, not chill. "Mrs. Slawson," she managed to bring out, before words became impossible, drowned in the torrent of her tears and sobbing. Martha placed a motherly hand about the frail shoulders. "Come now, come now! Don’t cry like that. You’ll shake yourself to pieces. I don’t know what’s the matter, but it’ll be all right, anyhow, never fear. You’re Ellen Hinckley, ain’t you? I think I seen you a couple o’ times at church." As Martha talked, she drew her visitor into the house, automatically locked and bolted the door, and settled the girl in Sam’s chair in the sitting-room. The moonlight, streaming in through the windows, made the place almost as light as day, but for some purpose of her own, Martha was about to strike a match, when Ellen Hinckley stopped her with a quick cry. "No, no! Don’t do it! I’ve run away. I’ve left my mother’s. My stepfather’ll follow me when he finds I’m gone." She drew a long painful breath, then panted out her story in short, labored gasps. "I’ve never had a home. You mayn’t believe it, but mother don’t care a scrap about me, except for the work I can do. I’ve tried and tried for years to bear it, but it’s got to be too hard. I can’t live that way any longer. You know,—Mr. Wedall——?" Martha nodded. "The pasture?" "Yes, he’s my minister. He knows all about me. He told me to do my best, but if the time came when I just couldn’t bear it another minute I might go. He said _he_ couldn’t help me run away, because—because——" "Certaintly he couldn’t!" said Martha. "But he said, if ever I _had_ to do it, the Lord would raise up some one who could. Mother’s never liked me. I’ve not been happy a minute since my father died. _He_ wasn’t happy. He had no peace of his life. He used to tell mother she’d get her come-uppance some day, and she’s got it now, for Buller, that’s her second husband, he beats her. He’s got her money and mine too, what father left us, and he’s afraid I’ll law him, now I’m of age and can. I tried to run off yesterday, but he caught me and took away my clothes, and locked me in my room. I had some money I’d got hold of. ’Twas my own—and when he caught me, and he and mother stripped me and locked me up, I held on to it, all through, though he beat me black and blue with his belt-strap." She spread her poor little trembling palm, disclosing a fistful of crumpled bills. "See? And here’s where he beat me—and _she_ stood by and let him!" As she spoke, the girl drew back the coarse night-dress from her breast, displaying shoulders and back seamed across with cruel wales.