“It was this, ma’am,” she replied, resuming the more refined speech to which, since living at Deemouth, she had been less accustomed—“I had a shock that night from suddenly seeing one in the church whom I had thought never to see again; and when I got into the street, I turned so sick that some kind body gave me whisky, and that was how, not having been used to it for some time, that I disgraced myself. But indeed, I have a much worse trouble and shame upon me than that—one you would hardly believe, ma’am!” “I understand,” said Mrs. Robertson, modifying her speech also the moment she perceived the change in that of her guest: “you saw him in church—the man that got you into trouble! I thought that must be it!—won’t you tell me all about it?” “I will not tell his name. _I_ was the most in fault, for I knew better; and I would rather die than do him any more harm!—Good morning, ma’am!—I thank you kindly, sir! Believe me I am not ungrateful, whatever else I may be that is bad.” She rose as she spoke, but Mrs. Robertson got to the door first, and standing between her and it, confronted her with a smile. “Don’t think I blame you for holding your tongue, my dear. I don’t want you to tell. I only thought it might be a relief to you. I believe, if I were in the same case—or, at least, I hope so—that hot pincers wouldn’t draw his name out of me. What right has any vulgar inquisitive woman to know the thing gnawing at your heart like a live serpent? I will never again ask you anything about him.—There! you have my promise!—Now sit down again, and don’t be afraid. Tell me what you please, and not a word more. The minister is sure to find something to comfort you.” “What can anybody say or do to comfort such as me, ma’am? I am lost—lost out of sight! Nothing can save me! The Saviour himself wouldn’t open the door to a woman that left her suckling child out in the dark night!—That’s what I did!” she cried, and ended with a wail as from a heart whose wound eternal years could never close. In a while growing a little calmer— “I would not have you think, ma’am,” she resumed, “that I wanted to get rid of the darling. But my wits went all of a sudden, and a terror, I don’t know of what, came upon me. Could it have been the hunger, do you think? I laid him down in the heather, and ran from him. How far I went, I do not know. All at once I came to myself, and knew what I had done, and ran to take him up. But whether I lost my way back, or what I did, or how it was, I cannot tell, only I could not find him! Then for a while I think I must have been clean out of my mind, and was always seeing him torn by the foxes, and the corbies picking out his eyes. Even now, at night, every now and then, it comes back, and I cannot get the sight out of my head! For a while it drove me to drink, but I got rid of that until just last night, when again I was overcome.—Oh, if I could only keep from seeing the beasts and birds at his little body when I’m falling asleep!”