gloomily passed to the inside, with suspended breath and with a slow foot-step. He went up to his door, opened it, and so into the room.

Quiet and peace were there. Rachael was there, sitting by the bed.

She turned her head, and the light of her face shone in upon the midnight of his mind. She sat by the bed, watching and tending his wife. That is to say, he saw that someone lay there, and he knew too well it must be she, but Rachael’s hands had put a curtain up, so that she was screened from his eyes. Her disgraceful garments were removed, and some of Rachael’s were in the room. Everything was in its place and order as he had always kept it, the little fire was newly trimmed, and the hearth was freshly swept. It appeared to him that he saw all this in Rachael’s face, and looked at nothing besides. While looking at it, it was shut out from his view by the softened tears that filled his eyes; but not before he had seen how earnestly she looked at him, and how her own eyes were filled, too.

She turned again towards the bed, and, satisfying herself that all was quiet there, spoke in a low, calm, cheerful voice.

“I am glad you have come at last, Stephen. You are very late.”

“I ha’ been walking up an’ down.”

“I thought so. But ’tis too bad a night for that. The rain falls very heavy, and the wind has risen.”

The wind? True. It was blowing hard. Hark to the thundering in the chimney, and the surging noise! To have been out in such a wind, and not to have known it was blowing!

“I have been here once before today, Stephen. Landlady came round for me at dinner-time. There was someone here that needed looking to, she said. And ’deed she was right. All wandering and lost, Stephen. Wounded, too, and bruised.”

He slowly moved to a chair and sat down, drooping his head before her.

“I came to do what little I could, Stephen; first, for that she worked with me when we were girls both, and for that you courted her and married her when I was her friend——”

He laid his furrowed forehead on his hand, with a low groan.

“And next, for that I know your heart, and am right sure and certain that ’tis far too merciful to let her die, or even so much as suffer, for want of aid. Thou knowest who said, ‘Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone at her!’ There have been plenty to do that. Thou art not the man to cast the last stone, Stephen, when she is brought so low.”

“Oh Rachael, Rachael!”

“Thou hast been a cruel sufferer, Heaven reward thee!” she said, in compassionate accents. “I am thy poor friend, with all my heart and mind.”

The wounds of which she had spoken seemed to be about the neck of the self-made outcast. She dressed them now, still without showing her. She steeped a piece of linen in a basin, into which she poured some liquid from a bottle, and laid it with a gentle hand upon the sore. The three-legged table had been drawn close to the bedside, and on it there were two bottles. This was one.

It was not so far off but that Stephen, following her hands with his eyes, could read what was printed on it in large letters. He turned of a deadly hue, and a sudden horror seemed to fall upon him.

“I will stay here, Stephen,” said Rachael, quietly resuming her seat, “till the bells go Three. ’Tis to be done again at three, and then she may be left till morning.”

“But thy rest agen tomorrow’s work, my dear.”

“I slept sound last night. I can wake many nights, when I am put to it. ’Tis thou who art in need of rest—so white and tired. Try to sleep in the chair there, while I watch. Thou hadst no sleep last night, I can well believe. Tomorrow’s work is far harder for thee than for me.”

He heard the thundering and surging out of doors, and it seemed to him as if his late angry mood were going about trying to get at him. She had cast it out; she would keep it out; he trusted to her to defend him from himself.

“She don’t know me, Stephen; she just drowsily mutters and stares. I have spoken to her times and again, but she