’He’s sent it, has he?’ she said. ’Mebbe a wee thing late! Weel, he didna grudge it likely. They’re tellin’ me he was never the lad to grudge, and Mysie had but tae speir and he wad help her. But na, she wudna! She was a queer body, Mysie. She had a place, and she lost it (anent her trouble, ye see); and then she got the cauld trailin’ the streets to get a sicht o’ her jo, and she dwined and dwined.... Ay, it’s a queer warld: and as you cam’ chappin’ at the door yonder, wi’ his money in yer hand, the last breath had just but newly left her mooth.’ Alison, as she listened, was pale; her pulses fluttered to her deeply-moved, indignant sympathy. Inexperienced in sorrow, she knew not what to say, but her eyes filled, and the woman saw them, and drew her hand across her own eyes, dim with long watching. ’Ye will excuse us,’ she said, with unconscious dignity. ’It wasna decent that ye sud see what ye saw. But I wasna mysel’, and I thocht it was a neebor that chappit—a skilly woman we were waitin’ on. I wudna have ye think,’ she went on, wistfully, ’that we didna do the best we could for poor Mysie.’ ’I know, I know,’ whispered Alison, eagerly. ’And, oh! will you take this from me?’ She pressed into the woman’s hand her own little hoard. ’I thank ye, mem; I canna refuse it,’ the poor creature said simply. ’For we’ll be sair put to it for a decent burial.’ Alison turned to go, her eyes burning, her heart hot within her. *CHAPTER XXXIV.* One mastering thought gave Alison’s feet wings as she neared the Potterrow on her return from the Wabster’s Close. She would tell Nancy of this heart-moving, this pitiful, sad scene she had witnessed, and make it plain to her at whose door the greater guilt of it all lay. Then Nancy must see reason, must lift the veil from her eyes, acknowledge the wrong-doing of the man who could cause suffering so infinite, and see her own danger in submitting to his influence. Alison, in spite of much recently-acquired experience, was still, as the perspicacious reader will perceive, very simple. Nancy was sitting writing when her messenger returned. ’Well, child,’ she said, ’and did you find the wench and deliver our friend’s bounty?’ ’Bounty!’ cried Alison, throwing out her hands. ’She—she needs no bounty, Nancy. She’s dead!’ Nancy started, then tapped her foot upon the floor impatiently. ’La, child,’ she exclaimed, pettishly, ’how you frighten one!’ But Alison was in no mood to be put off with petulance or callousness. In quick words, faltering and broken—for her eyes were wet, and her quiet, reticent nature stirred to the rare point of passionate utterance—she told what she had seen of Mysie’s end. ’And, oh, Nancy,’ she whispered at last, on her knees at her friend’s side, ’it was _his_ doing. She was in trouble; it was _his_ fault. She’s dead—dead! and but for him she might have been alive and happy—honest at the least.’