'Speak out, Peter,' I said; 'you needn't be afraid of me.' 'It happened when I was ill, you see, miss, and I've sometimes thought as it might be no more than a dream. I had a many dreams while I were lying on that little bed in grandmother's room, wicked dreams, and this might be one of them; and yet it's real-like, and there isn't the muddle in it that there is in the other dreams.' 'What is it, Peter? O, pray, pray be quick!' 'I'm a-coming to it, miss. Is it wicked for folks to kill theirselves?' 'Is it wicked? Of course it is--desperately wicked; a sin that can never be repented of.' 'Then I know one that's going to do it.' 'Who?' 'Mrs. Darrell.' He gave a solemn nod, and stood staring at me with wide-open awe-stricken eyes. 'How do you know that?' 'It was one dark night, when it was raining hard--I could hear it drip, drip, drip upon the roof just over where I was lying. It was when I was very bad, and lay still all day and couldn't speak. But I knew what grandmother said to me, and I knew everything that was going on, though I didn't seem to--that was the curious part of it. I had been asleep for a bit, and I woke up all of a sudden, and heard some one talking to grandmother in the next room--the door wasn't wide open, only ajar. I shouldn't have known who it was, for I'm not quick at telling voices, like other folks; but I heard grandmother call her Mrs. Darrell; and I heard the lady say that when one was sick and tired of life, and had no one left to live for, it was best to die; and grandmother laughed, and says yes, there wasn't much to live for, leastways not for such as her. And then they talked a little more; and then by and by Mrs. Darrell asked her for some stuff--I didn't hear the name of it, for Mrs. Darrell only whispered it. Grandmother says no, and stuck to it for a good time; but Mrs. Darrell offered her money, and then more and more money. She says it couldn't matter whether she got the stuff from her or from any one else. She could get it easily enough, she says, in any large town. And she didn't know as she should use it, she says. It was more likely than not she never would; but she wanted to have it by her, so as to feel she was able to put an end to her life, if ever it grew burdensome to her. "You'll never use it against any one else?" says grandmother; and Mrs. Darrell says who was there she could use it against, and what harm need she wish to anybody; she was rich enough, and had nothing to gain from anybody's death. So at last, after a deal of talk, grandmother gave her the stuff; and I heard her counting out money--I think it was a hundred pounds--and then she went away in the rain.' I remembered that night upon which Mrs. Darrell had stayed out so long in the rain--the night that followed her stormy interview with Angus Egerton.