'Let us shelter somewhere.' 'We must find first some one who will take us in.' 'There is the Poor House.' 'Not for us――we do not belong to the place. And, further, it is full.' 'Let us creep into some hay-loft.' 'They will turn us out.' 'Into the church.' 'That at Axmouth is locked; that at Rousdon the roof has fallen in.' 'Mother, we must go somewhere.' 'So we shall――to the only shelter open.' 'Is it far?' 'No.' She still hurried the girl along, now at a faster pace, for they walked on fairly level down. The day had completely closed in; all, however, was not inky darkness. On looking behind, seen through a blur of mist, could be caught some glimmer of lights from Seaton. There was, perhaps, a moon above the clouds, but the light sufficed only to show that there was not absolute obscurity above. It was to Winefred as though life was being left behind, and they were plunging into boundless and black despair. A wheeling gull screamed in her ear. Suddenly the mother halted. The wind lashed her hair, and flapped her sodden gown. She gripped Winefred now with both hands, and turning her back to the blast and splashing rain, said, 'Child! you shall know all now, now that there is no place whatever left for us. Your father has deserted you, he has abandoned me. He did this nineteen years ago. Not a word, not a shilling has he sent me. I know neither where he is, nor what he has been doing. He may be rich, he may be poor. He may be in blustering health, he may be sick or dead. Neither by letter nor by messenger have I been told――and I care not. I love him no more. I hate the man who has suffered us to come to this. Child, if a father can be stone to his own child, if a hus――――if a man who has loved a woman can forget her who loved him with her whole young fresh heart――then is it a marvel that other men on whom we have no claim, to whom bound by no ties, are stone also? Child――you and I are alone. We are everything to each other. I have none but you; you have none but me. If I go, you are lost. If you go――I am no more. We are tied up in one another, to live and die together. Come on.' Again she turned and faced the tearing, rain-laden wind. 'Mother, I cannot take another step,' sobbed the girl. 'We have not far to go.' 'Mother, I hear the sea; you have lost the way.' 'I know my course.' 'There is no path here.' 'I know it; paths lead to men and their homes――to firesides and warm beds.' 'We are on the cliff.' 'I came to the cliff.' 'We are drawing to the edge!' 'I know it: we are at the very brow.' 'But what if we fall over?' Then with a hoarse voice Jane Marley said, as she held her child with a firmer grasp, 'Why, then, we shall not feel the wind and the cold and the rain and our weariness, we shall say good-bye to a stony world. There is no other refuge for us outcasts. Locked in each other's arms, mother and child must die.'