Such an argument was too petty to touch
his excited mind.

"I don't care for your master and mistress.
If your master is a man, he must feel for me
—poor shipwrecked sailor that I am—kept
for years a prisoner amongst savages, always,
always, always thinking of my wife and my
home —dreaming of her by night, talking to
her, though she could not hear, by day. I
loved her more than all heaven and earth
put together. Tell me where she is, this
instant, you wretched woman, who salved
over her wickedness to her, as you do to me."

The clock struck ten. Desperate positions
require desperate measures.

"If you will leave the house now, I will
come to you to-morrow and tell you all.
What is more, you shall see your child now.
She lies sleeping up-stairs. O, sir, you
have a child, you do not know that as yet—
a little weakly girl—with just a heart and
soul beyond her years. We have reared her
up with such care. We watched her, for
we thought for many a year she might die
any day, and we tended her, and no hard
thing has come near her, and no rough word
has ever been said to her. And now you
come and will take her life into your hand,
and will crush it. Strangers to her have
been kind to her; but her own father—
Mr. Frank, I am her nurse, and I love her,
and I tend her, and I would do anything for
her that I could. Her mother's heart beats
as hers beats; and, if she suffers a pain, her
mother trembles all over. If she is happy,
it is her mother that smiles and is glad. If
she is growing stronger, her mother is
healthy: if she dwindles, her mother lan-
guishes. If she dies—well, I don't know:
it is not every one can lie down and die when
they wish it. Come up-stairs, Mr. Frank,
and see your child. Seeing her will do good
to your poor heart. Then go away, in God's
name, just this one night—to-morrow, if need
be, you can do anything—kill us all if you
will, or show yourself a great grand man,
whom God will bless for ever and ever.
Come, Mr. Frank, the look of a sleeping child
is sure to give peace."

She led him up-stairs; at first almost helping
his steps, till they came near the nursery
door. She had almost forgotten the existence
of little Edwin. It struck upon her with
affright as the shaded light fell upon the
other cot; but she skilfully threw that corner
of the room into darkness, and let the light
fall on the sleeping .Ailsie. The child had
thrown down the coverings, and her deformity,
as she lay with her back to them, was
plainly visible through her slight night-gown.
Her little face, deprived of the lustre of her
eyes, looked wan and pinched, and had a
pathetic expression in it, even as she slept.
The poor father looked and looked with
hungry, wistful eye., into which the big tears
came swelling up slowly, and dropped heavily .
down, aa he stood trembling and shaking all
over. Norah was angry with herself for
growing impatient of the length of time that
long lingering gaze lasted. She thought that
she waited for full half-an-hour before Frank
stirred. And then—instead of going away—
he sank down on his knees by the bedside,
and buried his face in the clothes. Little
Ailsie stirred uneasily. Norah pulled him up
in terror. She could afford no more time even
for prayer in her extremity of fear; for surely
the next moment would bring her mistress
home. She took him forcibly by the arm;
but, as he was going, his eye lighted on the
other bed: he stopped. Intelligence came
back into his face. His hands clenched.

"His child?" he asked.

"Her child," replied Norah. " God watches
over him," said she instinctively; for Frank's
looks excited her fears, and she needed to
remind herself of the Protector of the help-
less.

"God has not watched over me," he said,
in despair; his thoughts apparently recoiling
on his own desolate, deserted state. But
Norah had no time for pity. To-morrow she
would be as compassionate as her heart
prompted. At length she guided him
downstairs and shut the outer door and bolted it—
as if by bolts to keep out facts.

Then she went back into the dining-room
and effaced all traces of his presence as far as
she could. She went up-stairs to the nursery
and sate there, her head on her hand, thinking
what was to come of all this misery. It
seemed to her very long before they did
return; yet it was hardly eleven o'clock. She
heard the loud, hearty Lancashire voices on
the stairs; and, for the first time, she under-
stood the contrast of the desolation of the
poor man who had so lately gone forth in
lonely despair.

It almost put her out of patience to see
Mrs. Openshaw come in, calmly smiling,
handsomely dressed, happy, easy, to inquire
after her children.

"Did Ailsie go to (sleep comfortably?"
she whispered to Norah.

"Yes."

Her mother bent over her, looking at her
slumbers with the soft eyes of love. How
little she dreamed who had looked on her
last! Then she went to Edwin, with
perhaps less wistful anxiety in her countenance,
but more of pride. She took off her
things, to go down to supper. Norah saw
her no more that night.

Beside the door into the passage, the sleep-
ing-nursery opened out of Mr. and Mrs.
Openshaw's room, in order that they might
have the children more immediately under
their own eyes. Early the next summer
morning Mrs. Openshaw was awakened by
Ailsie's startled call of "Mother! mother!"
She sprang up, put on her dressing-gown,
and went to her child. Ailsie was only half
awake, and in a not uncommon state of
terror.