Rhoda hesitated. "Father's out, miss. He has gone off in the boat with Mr Trethick, to try for pollack. We're quite alone." At the name of Trethick, Rhoda shrank away, but setting her teeth, she determined not to give up like some weak girl. Geoffrey Trethick was nothing to her now, and, as she thought that, a passionate, angry desire to stand face to face with the woman who had robbed her of his love made her take a step towards the door. Bessie bent down and picked up the baby, which laughed and kicked as she held it in her arms, but Rhoda snatched away her eyes. She hated it, she told herself; and, following Bessie into the gloomy room, she looked towards where Mrs Prawle was wont to sit, but the chair was empty. "Mother is lying down in the bedroom," said Bessie. "I'll tell her you are here, miss." As she spoke, Bessie turned aside to place the baby in a pair of extended hands before leaving the place. Rhoda had not seen who was seated in the darkened portion of the room, but Bessie's act told her who it was, and turning sharply, her veins tingling, and her head giddy with her anger, she stood face to face with Madge Mullion, the girl she hated in a way that she could not have thought possible. As she stood there, her fingers clenched together, the spirit was in her to strike the girl--to curse her; but, when she saw the pale, weary-looking face, and the great, staring eyes of the young mother, as she clasped her little one to her breast, all Rhoda's anger seemed to pass away as rapidly as it had come, and in its place there was a feeling of profound pity. They stood there gazing in each other's eyes for some minutes without speaking, Rhoda proud and erect, Madge weak and piteous in the extreme; and, as if in dread of her visitor, she held her little one between them as a shield. "Are you not ashamed to look me in the face?" said Rhoda, sternly. "Am I not weak and suffering enough," retorted Madge, "that you say these cruel words? Oh, Miss Penwynn, let me try and explain--let me tell you how I have suffered for the pain I have caused you." "Hold your tongue," said Rhoda, coldly. "Don't speak to me. I did not come to see you. Do not speak to me again." As Rhoda spoke she saw the poor girl's eyelids droop, and a ghastly pallor came over her face. She was fainting, and had not the visitor involuntarily caught the little one from its mother's hands, as she fell back in the corner of the sofa, it would have dropped upon the brick floor. The child uttered a piteous cry, and seemed to stare with astonishment at her who held it from her, stunned almost at her position. But as the babe looked up in her handsome face, the wrinkles in its little countenance departed, and it began to laugh and coo, trying to catch at one of the long curls pendent above its face.