have been wrong in his life, who'd have been liker to see it than me?"
It was to Rachel Ffrench she was going, and when at last she reached the end of her journey, and was walking up the pathway to the house, Rachel Ffrench, who stood at the window, saw her, and was moved to wonder by her pallor and feebleness.
The spring sunshine was so bright outside that the room seemed quite dark when she came into it, and even after she had seated herself the only light in it seemed to emanate from the figure of Miss Ffrench herself, who stood opposite her in a dress of some thin white stuff and with strongly fragrant yellow hyacinths at her neck and in her hand.
"You are tired," she said. "You should not have walked."
The woman looked up at her timidly.
"It isn't that," she answered. "it's somethin' else."
She suddenly stretched forth her hands into the light.
"I've come here to hear about my boy," she said. "I want to hear from one as knows the truth, an'—will tell me."
Miss French was not of a sympathetic nature. Few young women possessed more nerve and self-poise at trying times, and she had not at any previous period been specially touched by Mrs. Haworth; but just now she was singularly distressed.
"What do you want to know," she asked, "that I can tell you?"
She was not prepared for what happened next, and lost a little placidity through it. The simple, loving creature fell at her feet and caught hold of her dress, sobbing.
"He's thirty-three years old," she cried, "an' I've never
