"Have you been in any trouble since leaving jail?" asked Leveson gravely.
She did not answer the question, but flushed with burning shame at the last word, and hung her head heavily. "What Jem would ha' said—I doubt but it helped to kill him. An' my poor mother as brought me up so respectable; but I didn't know what I was a-doin' that day, I didn't."
"It was the first time you ever gave way to such temptation, was it not?"
She gave a mute sign of assent.
"And I trust it may be the last. Poor woman, you have suffered for your sin," he said compassionately. "But there is One—One of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and One whose law you have broken—who well knows the strength of your temptation. He offers you free pardon for the past, if you will seek it at His feet."
"I dunno much about such things," said Mary Carter despondingly. "An' what I'm to do now, no home, an' no work, an' the child dependin' on me!"
"Mother, we'll be took care of," said Ailie. "Why didn't you come back straight when you was set free?"
"I couldn't, child. I've been in hospital since. I was run over that day, an' 'twas weeks afore I knowed where I was, an' longer afore I could speak sense."
"Run over!" repeated Leveson and Ailie together.
"Aye, 'twas that same day," repeated Mary Carter. "I've but a half remembrance of it all. I was walkin' along, an' looking forward to hear where Ailie was, an' thinkin' to find she'd been sent off to the work'us. I s'pose I wasn't heedin' much where I was goin', an' in crossin' a road, I heard a shriekin', and I see a great 'bus comin' down right upon me, an' somehow my foot slipped. After that I knowed nothin'—for weeks they telled me. I'd a broken leg, an' a blow on the head, as took away all my senses. It's left me that weak now, that I don't scarce know how to walk nor stand, but they says I'm as well as I'm like to be for many a year. I'll never be the same woman again, an' I can't take a needle for half an hour, but I turns giddy. But I'll have to work, for we ain't got nothin' to live on."