'No, she has fallen asleep, and there is a smile on her lips.' 'I thought so. Sit down, Jane. I will have my pipe and grog, and you shall sip the latter if I cannot win you to have a pull at the first. It will be the most sovereign medicine after the chill. Sit down and tell me all.' 'There is nothing to tell.' 'There is everything to tell. If I had not chanced to arrive at the right moment, you would have thrown your child into the sea.' 'I would have cast myself over the cliffs with her in my arms.' 'Why so?' 'Because no one would take us in. I knocked at every door, I told my case in every ear, I appealed to every heart. It was all of no avail; so I knew there was no place for us in the world. We were to be squeezed out of it. Look outside your door and see. Listen to the wind and rain against your window. What sort of a night is this? Not fit for a dog to be out in――yet into it homeless and hungry the widow and the fatherless are thrust. Answer me, which were best? To end our miseries with one gasp, or to lie in the wet and whistle of the wind, shiver and die of a November night behind some dripping hedge in a ditch half full of water? There was but a choice of deaths. It was not a picking between life and death. Which would be worst――the short pang or the prolonged wretchedness? Which would you choose if it were to be your lot――the lot of you and Jack?' 'Jack and I are men. Men do not lie down in ditches to die, or chuck themselves over cliffs. If what they desire and need be not given them they take it by main force.' He poured himself out a stiff glass of grog, then recollecting the woman, gave her some, much diluted, sufficient to drive out the cold and induce sleep. 'Why did you not go to Mrs. Jose at Bindon? Everybody who is in distress seeks her.' 'Mrs. Jose is away at Honiton with her sister nursing her. She is sick.' 'Whither do you propose to go to-morrow?' 'I have nowhere before me.' 'You do not belong to this parish?' 'No, I was not born here. I have not lived here long enough. But, captain, do not misunderstand me. I ask alms of none; all I require is work to be given me so that I may earn my livelihood, and I will not be separated from my child. See you,' her voice softened, and the lines in her face relaxed, as her eyes melted and her lips quivered, 'I am a lonely woman. I have neither father nor mother nor sister nor kin. No, nor husband neither. He whom I had has abandoned me; maybe, by this time, has taken up with another woman, and dresses and feeds and comforts her.' Again her voice and features became hard. She looked before her into the fire. But then again a wave of softer feeling swept over her.