"Elsie McDougall. We lived on Dunster Moor," Elsie replied, with a conscious blush. "She made me call myself Effie Donaldson."
"A lovely place, too," the old gentleman said. "And you ran away? I hope you like it. Do you know that children who have run away have before now disappeared, and never been heard of again?"
Elsie only cast down her eyes in frightened silence.
"And what became of them, do you suppose?" he went on sternly. "Perhaps they were killed, perhaps they died of fright, and hunger, and misery. I should not like to say; only I know they never returned any more to their homes."
The stern words were too much for Elsie. The sense of her own loneliness and danger, her separation from Duncan, and the misfortunes she had led him into, came over her with overwhelming force, and she wept bitterly.
"It is fortunate for you that you have fallen into the hands of the law," the old gentleman added, more kindly. "You will be safe, and will by-and-by be allowed to go back to your mother. That will do."
She was then conducted out of the court by the officer who had brought her there, put into a cab, and driven back to the great court-yard, where she was once more delivered over to the charge of the woman. She spent the rest of the day in a dismal, ugly room, with a number of girls, who were rough and disagreeable and ill-tempered, and could not possibly have been more wretched. Her experience had made her distrustful of every one, so that she was dreadfully afraid of what might happen as the consequence of all she had betrayed. She was distracted, too, about Duncan, and altogether could find but meagre comfort in the promise that by-and-by she should be allowed to go back home again.
CHAPTER XVIII.—HOME FROM MARKET.
"Y
e seem to be doing right well to-day, judging by your face," exclaimed the hearty voice of Farmer Jarrett, as he encountered Mrs. McDougall in the market-place.