Mrs. Sabin tried to control herself. "I'm not to talk about that--I know I'm not. But they give me my money for fifteen year--and then they stopped giving it--three year ago. I suppose they thought I'd never be back here again. But John's my flesh and blood, all the same. I made Mr. Sabin write for me to Sir Ralph. But there came a lawyer's letter and fifty pounds--and that was to be the last, they said. So when Mr. Sabin died, I said I'd come over and see for myself. But I'm ill--you see--and John's a fool--and I must find some one as 'ull tell me what to do. If you're a gentleman living here"--she peered into his face--"perhaps you'll tell me? Lady Fox-Wilton's left comfortable, I know. Why shouldn't she do what's handsome? Perhaps you'll give me a word of advice, sir? But you mustn't tell!--not a word to anybody. Perhaps they'll be for putting me in prison?" She put her finger to her mouth; and then once more she bent forward, passionately scrutinizing the two people in the distance. Barron had grown white. "If you want my advice you must try and tell me plainly what all this means," he said, sternly. She looked at him--with a mad expression flickering between doubt and desire. "Then you must shut the door, sir," she said at last. Yet as he moved to do so, she bent forward once more to look intently at the couple outside. "And what did they tell me that lie for?" she repeated, in a tone half perplexed, half resentful. Then she turned peremptorily to Barron. "Shut the door!" * * * * * Half an hour later Barron emerged into the road, from the cottage. He walked like a man bewildered. All that was evil in him rejoiced; all that was good sorrowed. He felt that God had arisen, and scattered his enemies; he also felt a genuine horror and awe in the presence of human frailty. All night long he lay awake, pondering how to deal with the story which had been told him; how to clear up its confusions and implications; to find some firm foothold in the mad medley of the woman's talk--some reasonable scheme of time and place. Much of what she had told him had been frankly incoherent; and to press her had only made confusion worse. He was tolerably certain that she was suffering from some obscure brain trouble. The effort of talking to him had clearly exhausted her; but he had not been able to refrain from making her talk. At the end of the half hour he had advised her--in some alarm at her ghastly look--to see a doctor. But the suggestion had made her angry, and he had let it drop. In the morning news was brought to him from Broad's cottage that John Broad's mother, Mrs. Richard Sabin, who had arrived from America only forty-eight hours before, had died suddenly in the night. The bursting of an unsuspected aneurism in the brain was, according to the doctor called in, the cause of death. BOOK II HESTER "Light as the flying seed-balls is their play The silly maids!"