"You are staying the night with her?" he asked, under his breath.
"Yes. Mrs. Mullins was up all last night. I offered to come to-night."
"You went with her to the prison to-day, I believe?"
"Yes."
"Did you see Hurd?"
"For a very few minutes."
"Did you hear anything of his state of mind?" he asked anxiously. "Is he penitent?"
"He talked to me of Willie," she said—a fierce humanness in her unfriendly eyes. "I promised him that when the child died, he should be buried respectably—not by the parish. And I told him I would always look after the little girls."
The rector sighed. He moved away. Then unexpectedly he came back again.
"I must say it to you," he said firmly, but still so low as not to be heard by any one else in the cottage. "You are taking a great responsibility here to-night. Let me implore you not to fill that poor woman with thoughts of bitterness and revenge at such a moment of her life. That you feel bitterly, I know. Mary has explained to me—but ask yourself, I beg of you!—how is she to be helped through her misery, either now or in the future, except by patience and submission to the will of God?"