MATTIE:—A STRAY.

BY F. W. ROBINSON

THE AUTHOR OF "HIGH CHURCH," "NO CHURCH," "OWEN:-A WAIF," &c., &c.

"By bestowing blessings upon others, we entail them on ourselves." Horace Smith.

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. II.

LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,
18, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1864.

The right of Translation is reserved.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE,
BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET.

CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

[BOOK III. UNDER SUSPICION.—Continued.]
[CHAPTER IX. The Clouds Thicken]
[CHAPTER X. Mattie in Search]
[CHAPTER XI. Explanations]
[CHAPTER XII. A Short Warning]
[CHAPTER XIII. Leave-takings]
[BOOK IV. "WANT PLACES."]
[CHAPTER I. One and Twenty]
[CHAPTER II. Sidney's Confession]
[CHAPTER III. A Flying Visit to number Thirty-four]
[CHAPTER IV. His Turn]
[CHAPTER V. The New Berth]
[BOOK V. STORM SIGNALS.]
[CHAPTER I. Cast Down]
[CHAPTER II. In which several Discoveries come together]
[CHAPTER III. Father and Daughter]
[CHAPTER IV. Only Pity]
[CHAPTER V. An Unavailing Effort]
[CHAPTER VI. Mr. Gray further Developed]
[CHAPTER VII. A Dinner Party]
[CHAPTER VIII. Mattie's Confession]

BOOK III.

CONTINUED.

UNDER SUSPICION.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CLOUDS THICKEN.

Mattie had fully anticipated a visit from Mr. Wesden on the day following Sidney Hinchford's departure, but the master appeared not at the little shop in Great Suffolk Street. It was not till the following day that he arrived—at six in the morning, as the boy was taking down the shutters. Mattie's heart began beating painfully fast; she had become very nervous concerning Mr. Wesden, and his thoughts of her. Appearances had been against her of late, and he was a man who did not think so charitably as he acted sometimes.

He gave a gruff good morning, and came behind the counter.

"You can do what you like to-day," he said. "I'll mind the shop."

"Very well, sir. I—I suppose," she added, hastily, "Miss Harriet has told you what happened the day before yesterday?"

"I know all about it. I don't want to talk about it."

"But I do, sir!"

Mr. Wesden stared over Mattie's head after his old fashion. His will had been law so long, that disputing it rather took him aback.

"I know that these losses put you out, Mr. Wesden," said Mattie, firmly; "that they are due to my own carelessness—to having been taken off my guard after all my watch here, all my interest in everything connected with the business. I dream of the shop,—I would not neglect it for the world,—and it is hard to be so unfortunate as I have been. Mr. Wesden, you wouldn't let me repay back the money which was taken away from the house; but I must pay the value of that parcel stolen from before my very eyes."

"It was large enough to see," he added, "and I expect you to pay for it, Mattie."

"What was it worth?"

"You shall have the bill to settle, if you've saved as much—it will come in next week. And now, just understand, once for all, that I don't want to talk about it—that I object very much to talk about it."

"Very well."

The subject was dropped; Mattie felt herself in disgrace, and, intensely sorrowful at heart, she went down-stairs to tell Ann Packet all that her carelessness had brought upon her.

"He's an old savage, my dear—don't mind him."

"No, Ann—he's a dear old friend, and his anger is just enough. It was all my fault!"

"Well, he's not such a bad master as he might be, pr'aps; but he isn't what he used to be before my ankles took to swelling, nothing like it."

"It will soon blow over, I hope," said Mattie.

"Bless your heart!—puffed away in a breath, it'll be."

Mattie, ever ready to console others, received consolation in her turn; and hoped for the best.

Late in the evening, Mr. Wesden departed, and early next day, much to Mattie's surprise, Harriet Wesden, with a box or two, arrived in a cab to the house.

Mattie watched the entrance of the boxes, and looked very closely into the face of the young mistress. Harriet, with a smile that was well got up for the occasion, advanced to her.

"Think, Mattie, of my coming here to spend a week with you—of being your companion. Why, it'll be the old times back again."

"I should be more glad to see you if I thought there were no other reason, Miss Harriet," said Mattie—"but there is!"

"Why, what can there——"

Mattie caught her by the sleeve.

"Your father suspects that I am not honest—the past life has come a little closer, and made him repent of all the past kindness—is not that it?"

"No, no, Mattie, dear—you must not think that!"

"He has grown suspicious of me—I can see it in his looks, in his altered manner; and, oh! I can do nothing to stop it—to show him that I am as honest as the day."

"Patience, Mattie, dear," said Harriet, "we will soon prove that to him, if he require proof. If I have come at his wish, it was at my own, too, and you are exaggerating the reasons that have brought me hither."

"I wonder why I stop here now," said Mattie, thoughtfully. "I, who am a young woman, and can get my own living. If he is tired of me, I have no right to stop."

"You will stop for the sake of those who love you, and who have trust in you, Mattie; you will not think of going away."

"Well, not yet awhile. I think," dashing a rebellious tear from her dark eyes, "that I can bear more than this before I leave you all. And if things do look a little dark just now, I shall live them down, with God's help!"

"There's nothing dark—it's three-fourths fancy. Think of my sorrows, Mattie, and thank heaven that you have never been in love!"

"Dreadful sorrows yours are, Miss Harriet, I must say!"

"People never think much of other people's sorrows," remarked Harriet, sententiously.

Thus it came about that Harriet Wesden and Mattie were thrown into closer companionship for awhile, and that Mattie began to think that the constant presence of the girl she loved most in the world made ample amends for the suspicions which had placed her there, for the absence of Sidney Hinchford, and the mystery by which it had been characterized.

"It's astonishing how I miss Mr. Sidney," Mattie said, confidently, to Harriet, "though we did not say much more than 'good morning,' and 'good evening,' from one week's end to another—but he has been so long here, and become so long a part of home, that it does seem strange to have the place without him."

"And the letter—he never got the letter, after all," sighed Harriet.

"There it is, on the drawing-room mantel-piece," said Mattie; "bad news awaiting his return. I see it every morning there, and think of his coming disappointment."

"He'll soon get over it—men soon get over it," replied Harriet, "they have so much to do in the world, and so many things therein to distract them. It's not like us poor girls, who think of nothing else but whom it is best to love, and who will love us best."

"Speak for your own romantic self, Miss Harriet," said Mattie, laughing.

"You never think of these things!—you, close on eighteen years of age!"

"Never," said Mattie, fearlessly; "I seem a little out of the way of it—it's not in my line. But—I understand it well enough."

"Or you would have never taken my part against poor old Sid," said Harriet.

"And that reminds me that I am neglecting poor old Sid's father, and I promised not."

Sid's father required no small amount of attention Mattie very quickly discovered; the absence of his son preyed upon the old gentleman, and left him entirely alone. The place was a desert without "the boy;"—with all his love for him, he could not have imagined that his absence would have led to such a blank. He thought that he could have put up with it, and jogged along in his old methodical way until Sid's return; but the horrors seized him in the attempt, and it was more of a struggle to keep time from killing him, than to kill the hoary enemy by distraction of pursuits.

He became absent over the account-books at the builder's office, and the clerks laughed at him and his mistakes; whilst the employers, who had found him slow in his movements for some time, thought he was getting past work and becoming unendurable. These old-fashioned clerks will get in the way, when the hand grows feeble, and the memory betrays them. Commerce has no fine feelings, and must sweep them aside for better men without compunction.

Mattie, remembering her promise to Sidney, and favoured in the performance of it by Harriet's extra service, played her cards well, and helped to wile away many hours that would have weighed heavily with Mr. Hinchford. An excuse to enter the room led to a remark concerning Sidney, which rendered the old gentleman voluble—and the presence of Harriet Wesden down-stairs, his son's future wife, formed a good excuse to lure him into the parlour, and persuade him to smoke his pipe there. Then Mattie began to think that she should like to know backgammon, and Mr. Hinchford condescended to instruct her, as he had instructed her, when she was younger, in orthography and syntax. And finally, when he was becoming excited about Sidney's non-appearance, and resolved one night to sit up for him, as he was positive of his return, Mattie essayed that difficult and delicate task which Sidney had confided to her—a task which Harriet was inclined to take upon herself—and somewhat jealous of Mattie being entrusted with it in her stead.

"He wrote to me the night he left—why didn't he ask me to console his father, I wonder?"

Mattie thought it was for the reason that consolation might be required at any moment, and that Sidney was ignorant of Harriet's intention to stay a few weeks at Great Suffolk Street—but Harriet Wesden on the scene was no reason for Mattie to relinquish her rights. Besides, she had confidence in her own powers of breaking the news—and the unopened death-warrant on the mantel-piece was evidence of Harriet Wesden's rights being at an end.

The story was told by degrees then—what Mr. Sidney had said to Mattie and wished her to do,—told with a gentleness and earnestness which did credit to Mattie's powers, and proved what a thoughtful, gentle woman she was becoming. Under the circumstances, also, she made the best of it, and though Mr. Hinchford pulled at his stock, and ruffled his white hair, and took a long while to understand it, yet it was a successful revelation.

"Always considerate, Mr. Sidney is," said Mattie, in conclusion; "most sons would have spoken out the truth at once, and gone away, leaving their fathers wholly miserable; he went at the subject like a daughter almost—didn't he, sir?"

Mr. Hinchford had felt inclined to believe himself treated childishly, till Mattie put the question in this new light.

"Ah! he did——" he burst forth with; "he's a dear lad! What a lucky girl that Harriet Wesden is!"

Time passed on, and no Sidney's return. The nights drew in closer yet, and with their lengthier darkness deepened the shadows round the lives of all our characters. Sidney had stated his intention to write no letters, but they were expected nevertheless, and Harriet began to fancy that it was a little strange—as strange as her interest in Sidney and his movements, now that she had given him up for ever! A letter for herself, from Miss Eveleigh, diverted her attention somewhat—it had been sent to Camberwell and posted on by her father.

"Miss Eveleigh is very anxious to see me for a few minutes," said Harriet. "She and her mother think of getting up some private theatricals at New-Cross, and they want my assistance and advice."

"Private theatricals!—that's playing at being actors and actresses, isn't it, Miss Harriet?"

"Oh! yes. Such capital fun!"

"For the people who come to see you as well?" asked Mattie, guessing by intuition where the shoe must pinch.

"To be sure," responded Harriet; "they wouldn't come if they did not like, my dear; and the change will do me good, and I think I'll go."

Mattie detected a heightened colour in Harriet's cheek.

"You will see Mr. Darcy there?"

"Well—perhaps I shall," said Harriet; "and I have a right to think about him now, or let him think about me, if he will. Mattie, you don't mind me going?"

"Mind!—why have I a right to stop you?"

"No; only I shall leave you all alone with that wearisome old man."

"He'll not weary me. Old friends never do."

"That sounds like a reproach, but you don't mean it, Mattie," said Harriet; "and, after all, I shall not be very long away. I shall take the train from London Bridge, and be there and back by eight o'clock."

Harriet hurried away to dress for her expedition; she came down in a flutter of high spirits, a very different being from the despondent, lackadaisical girl of a few weeks since. She had made up her mind to begin life and love afresh; uncertainty was over with her, and she was as gay and bright as the sunshine. But hers was a nature fit only for sunshine—the best and most loveable of girls when the shadows of every-day life were not cast on her track.

"By eight o'clock, Mattie; good-bye, my dear. Any advice?" she asked, pausing, with a saucy look about her mouth.

"Yes. Don't fall too deeply in love with Mr. Darcy, before you are sure that he is falling in love with you!"

"I can bring him to my feet with a look," she said; "bring him home here with a chain round his neck, like an amiable terrier."

"Let me have an opportunity of admiring your choice soon—we're all in the dark at present."

"Yes, father and mother too, until poor Sid," suddenly becoming grave, "breaks the seal of that letter it gave me grey hairs to write. Upon my word, Mattie, I found two in my head when I had finished it. I was so dreadfully shocked!"

"Well, the troubles are over."

"I think so—I hope so. Good-bye, my dear. Tell father where I have gone, if he should look in to-night. Home very early!"

She fluttered away, pausing to look in at the window and laugh through at Mattie once more.

"Perhaps it was as well she gave Sidney up," Mattie thought; "for she has been happier since, and all her dear bright looks are back again. What a wonderful man this Mr. Darcy must be! How I should like to see my darling's choice—the man that she thinks good enough for her! He must be a very good man, too; for with all her weakness, my Harriet despises deceit in any form, and would only love that which was honourable and true. But, then, why didn't she love Sidney Hinchford more; that's what puzzles me so dreadfully!"

She clutched her elbows with her hands, and bent herself into a Mother Bunch-like figure in the seat behind the counter, and went off into dream-land. Strange dream-land, belonging to the border-country of the mists lying between the present and the future. A land of things beyond the present, and yet which could never appertain to any future, map it as she might in the brain that went to work so busily. Figures flitted before her of Harriet and Mr. Darcy—of Sidney Hinchford in his desolation, so strange a contrast to the happiness which he had sought—of herself passing from one to the other and endeavouring to do good and make others happy, the one ambition of this generous little heart. And her sanguine nature wound up the story—if it were a story—with the general happiness of all her characters, just as we finish a story, if we wish to please our readers and win their patronage. Even Mr. Wesden would sink his suspicions in the deep water, and be the grave-faced, but kind-hearted patron again, in that border country wherein her thoughts were wandering.

Mr. Hinchford came home early to give her a lesson in backgammon, and was sadly disappointed to find Mattie on full duty in the shop that evening. He wandered about the shop himself for a while, and then went up-stairs early to bed, discontented with his lonely position in society; and his place was taken by Ann Packet, who had got "the creeps," and had a craving for "company." Ann Packet's ankles were very bad again, and it was dull work mourning over their decadence in the kitchen, with no one to pity her condition, or promise to call upon her, when she was carried to "St. Tummas's." Even she went to bed early also; for the customers came in frequently, and kept Mattie's attention employed, and it was scarcely worth while sitting in a draught on the shop steps, for the chance of getting in a word now and then, not to mention the probability of Mr. Wesden turning up, and scolding her for coming into the shop at all, an act he had never allowed in his time.

At eight o'clock, Mattie was left alone to superintend business; the supper tray for her and Harriet was left upon the parlour table by Ann Packet; in a few minutes Harriet would be back again.

At half-past eight, Mattie went to the door to watch her coming up the street, a habit with nervous people who would expedite the arrival of the loved one by these means. The action reminded her of Mr. Hinchford, when Sidney was late, and when a few rain drops were blown towards her by a restless wind abroad that night, the remembrance of waiting for Sidney Hinchford startled her. "Just such a night as this when we sat up for him, and he came home at last, so wild and stern—when we had almost given up the hope of coming home at all—what a strange coincidence!" thought Mattie.

When the rain came suddenly and heavily down, the coincidence was more remarkable; and when the clock scored nine, then half-past, then ten, it was the old suspense again.

"What nonsense!" thought Mattie; "she's stopping up for the rain. It is not very late, and I am only fanciful as usual. Nothing can be wrong—it's not likely!"

Those customers who strayed in still, wondered why she looked so often at the clock, and stared so vacantly at them when they expressed their verdict on the weather; and the policeman on duty outside observed her frequent visits to the door, and her wild gaze down the street towards the Borough. Yes, the old story over again—an absent friend, an anxious watcher, a night of wind and rain in Suffolk Street. The boy came to close the shop as usual, the door was shut en regle, and now it was Harriet's time to come back, rain or no rain, mystery or no mystery with her, and end the story à la Sidney Hinchford.

Mattie consulted a Bradshaw from the window, and found that the New Cross trains ran as late as twelve o'clock to London; this relieved her; Harriet was only waiting for the rain to clear up after all. But even midnight dragged its way towards her; and then the time passed in which she should have returned, and still no Harriet.

At one o'clock Mattie went to the door and looked out; the pavement was glistening yet, but the rain had abated, and the clouds were breaking up overhead. There had been nothing to stop her—even if Mattie had believed for a moment that Harriet would have stayed away for the rain. When she gave her up—when it was close on two o'clock—the stars were shining brightly again, although the air felt damp and cold.

"She'll never come back any more!" moaned Mattie; "she has met with danger—I am sure of it! She has come to harm, and I am powerless to help her. I should not feel like this, if something had not happened!"

"Two," struck the clock of St. Georges, Southwark; in the stillness of the streets it echoed towards her, and sounded like a death-bell. Mattie covered her face with her hands, and prayed silently for help, for one away from home. Then she sprung up again, piled some more coals on the fire, stirred it, and sat down before it.

"I'll not believe any of these horrible things yet a while. It will all be explained—she'll be back presently, to laugh at me for this foolishness!"

CHAPTER X.

MATTIE IN SEARCH.

How does the time contrive to steal away from us when we are sitting up, feverish with fear for him, or her, who returns not? The dial that we stare at so often, marks fresh hours, and still further alarms us; but the night is long and tedious, and there's a stab in every tick of that sepulchral clock on the landing. We disguise our alarm from the servants, even from ourselves, and sit down patiently for the coming one—nervous at the footfalls in the streets without, and feeling heart-sick as they pass our door, and die away in the distance. We set our books and newspapers aside at last, and wait—we give up pretension to coolness, and watch with our hearts also.

Mattie waited, tried to hope, then to pray again; gave up wholly after three in the morning, and cried as for one lost to her for ever. There was a reasonable hope in Harriet having missed the train, or in her having been induced to stay the night at the Eveleighs'; a reasonable fear—in these times of railway mismanagement and error—of an accident having occurred to the up-train. But these hopes and fears were not Mattie's; they flashed by her once or twice, but she felt that Harriet's absence was not to be accounted for by them. At four in the morning she took the big key from the lock, put on her bonnet and shawl, and then paused on the stairs, hesitating in her mind whether to apprise Ann Packet of her new intention or not.

Ann Packet would hear a knock if Harriet returned, which was unlikely now; she would not alarm Ann, or betray her friend unnecessarily. It might be necessary, who knows, to keep this ever a secret—she could not tell, all was mystery, dark and unfathomable.

"It's not a runaway match, either," thought Mattie, "for there was no occasion to run away, when Harriet and her lover could have married quietly and without any opposition, at least on their side. Harriet knows that, and is not a girl to be led away if she did not. Weak in many ways, but not in that, I know."

Mattie disliked mystery.

"I'll follow this to the end!" she cried with a stamp of her foot—"to the very end if possible."

Mattie might have been spelling over a sensation novel, wherein the hero or heroine—i.e. the villain catcher—goes through the last two volumes on the detective principle; and it might have possibly struck her that if the "catcher" had started earlier and gone a less roundabout way to work—certainly a bad way for the volumes!—the matter might have been more expeditiously arranged. She could always see to the end pretty clearly—why not the 'cute-minded party in search?

Mattie closed the street-door behind her, and went out into the cold morning. The pavement was still wet and clammy; there was no "drying-air" in the streets, although the stars looked bright and aggravatingly frosty.

Mattie turned to the left at the end of Great Suffolk Street, and proceeded at a rapid pace towards the railway station; there were stragglers still in the Borough—a broad thoroughfare, that never rests, but is ever alive with sound. Life still at the great terminus; a train hissing and fuming from its long journey, a handful of passengers by the mail, a few cabmen still looking out for fares, guards full of bustle as usual, one Kent Street gamin out on business, and dodging the policeman behind a Patent Safety.

Mattie went to business at once.

"Has any accident happened on the line to-night, sir?"

"Not any."

"What is the next train from New Cross that will reach here?"

"No train calls at New Cross till six in the morning."

"What is the next train that will leave here and call at New Cross?"

"Twenty minutes to six."

"Oh! dear."

A short spasmodic sigh, and then Mattie turned away and went back to Great Suffolk Street, opened the door, and stole cautiously up-stairs to the room wherein Harriet had been sleeping. Not there—still away from home!

"If anything has happened, I must be the first to find it out," thought Mattie, descending the stairs, listening at the foot thereof, and then passing out into the street again, closing the shop-door very cautiously behind her.

She had made up her mind to walk at once to New Cross, to seek out the Eveleighs, whose address she thought that she remembered. She went on at a rapid pace, with her veil thrown back, and her face full of interest—not a woman in the streets, hurrying like herself on special missions, or lurking at street corners, but Mattie glanced at for an instant as she sped along. She was a quick walker and lost no time; after all, New Cross was not a great distance away; she was not easily tired, and once in action, her fears for Harriet went further into the distance. She began to think, almost to hope, that Harriet would be at the Eveleighs', and all would end with a wild fancy on her part, at which Harriet and she would laugh later in the day. Down the Dover Road, past the Bricklayer's Arms, and along the Old Kent Road, till the long lines of closed shops ended in long lines of private houses, the railway station and the Royal Naval School—that model of good management, by which we recommend all directors of seedy institutions to profit.

Near the railway station Mattie found a policeman, who directed her to the particular terrace wherein the Eveleighs were located. It was nearly half-past five when she read by the light of the street lamp the name of Eveleigh on the brass plate affixed to the iron gate. With her hands upon the gate, Mattie held a council of war with herself as to the best method of procedure.

Mattie had soon arranged her plan of action; hers was a mind that jumped rapidly at conclusions—was quick to see the best way. Arousing the house would create an alarm, and if Harriet were not there—of which in her heart she was already assured—it would only set the people within talking about her. That would be to cast the first stone at her poor friend, and set the tongues of gossips wagging—that must not be! Mattie resolved to wait till some signs about the Eveleigh window blinds indicated a servant stirring in the house; she thought with a shudder of the shop in Great Suffolk Street, and the customers waiting for their papers; of Ann Packet's alarm, and Mr. Hinchford's perplexity; of the food for scandal which her absence would afford to a few inquisitive neighbours. Still all that might be easily explained, and it was only she who would receive the blame, if all turned out better than she dreamed; and if the worst were known, why, alas! her actions would readily be guessed at.

Fortune favoured Mattie in the most unromantic way that morning: the Eveleighs had resolved upon having their kitchen chimney swept at half-past five, and young Erebus, true to the minute, came round the corner with his soot-bag, went up the fore-court towards the side gate, rang the bell, and gave vent to his doleful cry. The maid-servant, however, was not prompt in her responses, and Mattie stood and watched in the distance, until the sweep, becoming impatient, rang again, and rattled with his brush against the side of the door steps. From Mattie's post of vigilance she could just make him out in the darkness—a shadowy figure, that might have represented evil to her and hers.

Presently the bolts of the side gate were withdrawn, and Mattie with hasty steps, crossed the road and hurried up the path. The sweep was being admitted at that time, and a red-eyed, white-faced, sulky-looking servant-maid of not more than sixteen years of age, was closing the door, when Mattie called to her to wait.

Surprised at this strange apparition at so early an hour, the girl waited and stared.

Mattie's plan of action would have done credit to a detective policeman; her questions seemed so wide of the mark, and kept suspicion back from her whom she loved so well. Certainly they implicated another, and drew attention to him in a marked manner; but he was a man, and could bear it, thought Mattie, and if he were at the bottom of the mystery, there was no need to study him—rather to track him out and come face to face with him!

"Will you tell Mr. Darcy that I wish to speak a few words with him immediately?"

"Mr. Darcy don't live here," said the astonished servant.

"He visits here—he stayed here last night."

"No, he didn't," was the abrupt reply; "he went away at ten o'clock."

"With Miss Wesden, of course," was the apparently careless answer.

"Yes, with Miss Wesden. He never stops here."

"Where does he live?"

"I don't know—somewhere about here, I believe."

"Ask his address of your mistress," cried Mattie, becoming excited as the truth seemed to loom before her with all its horror; "I must see him!"

The servant-maid's eyes became rounder, and she gasped forth—

"I'll—I'll wake missus."

"Ask her to oblige me with Mr. Darcy's address—and please make haste."

The servant withdrew, leaving Mattie standing in the draughty side passage, dark and dense as the fate of her whom she loved appeared to be from that day. She could hear the sweep bustling and bundling about the kitchen noisily; it seemed an age before the servant's feet came clumpeting down the stairs again.

"It's number fourteen, St. Olave's Terrace, Old Kent Road."

"Thank you."

Mattie turned away, and ran down the fore court at a rapid pace.

"Well—I never!" ejaculated the amazed domestic. "What's Mr. Darcy gone and done, I wonder!"

Mattie darted backward on her homeward route; her plans of action were at sea now; she only wished to know the worst, and feel the strength to face it for others' sakes, not for her own. There were an old man and an old woman to comfort in their latter days, to become a daughter to in the place of her who had been spirited away—give her strength to solace them in the deep misery upon its way.

People were stirring in the streets although the day was dark, and the sky above still full of stars. Mattie made many inquiries, and at last found St. Olave's Terrace, a row of large, gloomy houses, of red brick. At No. 14 Mattie knocked long and vigorously, until a window was opened in the first floor, and a boy's head protruded—the unkempt head of a page.

"What's the row down there?" he shouted.

"Mr. Darcy—is he at home?"

"He ain't at home—he didn't come back last night."

"Are you sure?—are you quite sure?"

"I should think I was," replied young Impudence. "Who shall I say called—Walker?"

"No matter—no matter."

Mattie turned and hurried away again. Close upon six o'clock, and an empty cab before a public-house door. Mattie ran into the public-house, and found the cabman drinking neat gin at the bar, and bewailing the hardness of the times to the barman, who was yawning fearfully.

"Is your cab engaged?"

"Where do you want to go, Miss?" asked the cabman. "If it's Greenwich way, I've got a party to take up in five minutes time!"

"Suffolk Street, Borough. I—I don't mind what I pay to get there quickly."

"Jump in, Miss—I'll drive you there in no time."

Mattie entered the cab, the cabman mounted the box, and away they went down the Old Kent Road. The cabman had been up all night, calling at many night-houses in his route, and always taking gin with despatch and gusto. He was reckless with his whip, unmerciful to his horse, and disregardful of the cab, which he had out on hire. He was just intoxicated enough to be confidential, mysterious, and sympathizing. He lowered the glass window at his back, and looked through at Mattie.

"Lor bless you! I wouldn't cry about a bit of a spree," he said, suddenly, so close to Mattie's ear, that she jumped to the other seat with affright; "if you've kep it up late, tell your missus, or your mother, that they wouldn't let you leave afore—she was young herself once, I daresay!"

"Drive on, please!—drive on!"

"I'm driving my hardest, my child—cutting off all the corners—that's only a kub-stone, don't be frightened, m'child—soon be home now. They won't say much to you, if you'll on'y tell 'em that they was young once 'emselves, and shouldn't be too hard upon a gal—that's on'y another kub-stone," he explained again, as a sudden jolting nearly brought the bottom out of the cab; "we shan't be long now—don't cry any more—I hope this here'll be a blessed warning to you!"

And suddenly becoming stern and full of reproof, he shook his head at Mattie, drew up the window, and directed his whole attention to his quadruped, which he had evidently made up his mind to cut in half between Old Kent Road and Great Suffolk Street.

At half-past six Mattie was turning the corner of the well-known street; she looked from the cab window towards the stationer's shop. The shutters were closed still, but the news-boy was at the open door, muffled to the nose in his worsted comforter. Mattie sprung out, paid her fare, and ran into the shop, where Ann Packet, with her eyes red with weeping, rushed at her at once, and began to cry and shake her.

"Oh! Mattie, Mattie, where have you been?—what's the matter?"

"Nothing much—don't ask me just yet. How long have you been up?"

"I overslept myself—oh! dear, dear, dear!—and just got up in a fright—that boy skeering me so with the heels of his boots aginst the door. And oh! dear, dear, dear!—I found the shop all dark, and just let him in, and was going up to call you, when here you are—oh! where have you been?"

"I'l tell you presently—let me think a bit—I'm not well, Ann."

"You've been to a doctor's. Oh! my dear, my dear, what has happened to you? You came back in a cab—you've hurt yourself somehow, and I to be so unfeeling and wicked as to think that, that you'd gone out of your mind, perhaps—for you always was a strange gal, and like nobody else, wasn't you? Shall I run up-stairs and wake Miss Harriet?"

"No, no—not for the world! Go down-stairs and make haste with the coffee, Ann, please. And you boy, don't stare like that," snapped Mattie, "but take the shutters down."

Ann scuttled down-stairs, forgetful of her ankles, in her excitement at the novel position of affairs; the boy took down the shutters and disclosed the cabman still before the door, carefully examining his horse, and rather evilly disposed towards himself for the damage he had done the animal and cab in his excitement. Mattie went into the parlour, where the gas burned still, and stood by the table reflecting on the end—what was to be done now?—whether it were better to keep up the mystery, to allege some reason for Harriet's absence, frame some white lie that might keep Ann Packet and Mr. Hinchford appeased, and save her name for a short while longer?

When the boy came staggering in with the third shutter, a new thought—a forlorn hope—suggested itself.

"Wait here and mind the shop till I come down, William," she said.

She went up-stairs in her bonnet and shawl, and pushed open the door of Harriet Wesden's room. Empty and unoccupied, as she might have known, and yet which, in defiance of possibilities, she had gone up to explore again. The blind was undrawn, and the faint glimmer of the late dawning was stealing into the room, and scaring the shadows back.

Mattie gave way at the desolation of the place; and flung herself upon her knees at the bed's foot.

"Oh! my darling, God forgive you, and watch over you—oh! my darling, whom I loved more than a sister, and who is for ever—for ever—lost to me!"

"No—NO—Mattie!"

Mattie leaped to her feet, and with a cry scarcely human, rushed towards the speaker in the doorway—the speaker who, white and trembling, opened her arms and received her on her throbbing breast. Harriet Wesden had come back again!

CHAPTER XI.

EXPLANATIONS.

Mattie shed many tears of joy at Harriet's return; she was a strong-minded young woman in her way, but the tension of nerve, and the reaction which followed it, had been too much for her, and she was, for a short while, a child in strength and self-command. For awhile they had changed places, Mattie and Harriet—Mattie becoming the agitated and weak girl, Harriet remaining firm, and maintaining an equable demeanour.

"Courage, Mattie!—what have you to give way at?" she said, at last.

"There, I'm better now," said Mattie, looking up into Harriet's face, and keeping her hands upon her shoulders; "and now, will you trust in me?—tell me the whole truth—keep nothing back."

"From you—nothing!"

"And if he has been coward enough to lead you away by the snares of your affection——"

"Affection!" cried Harriet. "I hate him! Coward enough!—he is coward enough for anything that would degrade me—and villain enough to spare no pains to place me in his power. Oh! Mattie—Mattie—what had I done to make him think so meanly of me?—to lead him on to plot against me in so poor and miserable a fashion?"

"You have escaped from him?"

"Thank God, yes!"

Mattie could have cried again with joy, but Harriet's excitement recalled her to self-command—Harriet, who stood there with her whole frame quivering with passion and outraged pride—a woman whom Mattie had not seen till then.

"Mattie," she said, "that man, Maurice Darcy, thought that if I were weak enough to love him, I was weak enough to fly with him, forget my woman's pride, my father, home, honour, and fling all away for his sake. He did not know me, or understand me; my God! he did not think that there were any good thoughts in me, or he would not have acted as he did. I have been blind—I have been a fool until to-night!"

She stamped her foot upon the floor until everything in the room vibrated; she caught Mattie's inquiring, earnest looks towards her and went on again—

"You and I, Mattie, must keep this ever a secret between us; for my sake, I am sure you will—for the sake of my good name, which that man's trickery has tarnished, however completely I have baffled him and shamed him. Mattie, he was at the Eveleighs' last night with his guilty plans matured. I had every confidence in him and his affection for me. I was off my guard, and believed that he was free from guile himself. At ten o'clock—beyond my time—I left the Eveleighs'; he was my escort to the railway station; he spoke of his love for me for the first time, and I was agitated and blinded by his seeming fervour. I told him of my promise to Sidney, and what I had done for his sake. I led him to think—fool that I was—that he had won my love long since. At the railway station he told me the story of his life—a lie from beginning to end—of his father's pride, of the secrecy with which our future marriage must be kept for awhile, away from that father—talking, protesting, explaining, until the train came up and he had placed me in the carriage."

"Ah! I see!" exclaimed Mattie.

"He followed me at the last moment, stating that he had business in London, and then the train moved on—for Dover!"

"Yes, he was a villain and coward!" cried Mattie, setting her teeth and clenching her hands spasmodically; "go on!"

"In less then five minutes I was aware of the deception that had been practised on me. I woke suddenly to the whole truth, to my own folly in believing in this man. He would have feigned it to be a mistake at first—a mistake on his own part—and for my own safety, alone with him there, and the train shrieking along into the night, I professed to believe him, and mourned over the clumsy blunder which was taking us away from home; but I was on my guard, and my reserve, my alarm, kept him cautious. I sat cowering from him in the extreme corner of the carriage, and he sat maturing his plans, and marking out, as he thought, his way. He confessed at last that it was a deeply-laid scheme to secure what he called his happiness. He swore to be a brother to me, a faithful friend in whom every trust might be put until we were married at Calais; but the mask had dropped, and my heart, throbbing with my humiliation, had turned utterly against him. I lowered the carriage window, and sat watchful of him, knowing every word he uttered then to be a lie, and feeling that he looked upon me as a girl easily to be led astray—a shop-keeper's daughter, whose self-respect was quickly deadened, and whose vanity was sufficient to lead her on to ruin. But I bade him keep his seat away from me, and give me time to think of what he had said—time to believe in him! We were silent the rest of the way to Ashford. My throat was choking with the angry words which burned to leap forth and denounce him for his knavery—he who sat smiling at the success in store for him. At Ashford, thank God! the train stopped."

"Thank God!" whispered Mattie also.

"I opened the door suddenly, Mattie, and leaped forth like a madwoman; he followed me to the platform, when I turned upon him like—like a she-wolf!" she cried, vehemently, "and denounced him for the cowardly wretch he had been to me. There were a few guards about, and one gentleman, and they were my audience. I claimed their protection from the man; I told them how I had been tricked into that train and led away from home; I asked them if they had daughters whom they loved to protect me and send me back again secure from him. Mattie, I shamed him to his soul!"

"Bravo!—bravo!" cried Mattie, giving two leaps in the air in her excitement; "that's my own darling, whose heart was ever strong and true enough!"

"Only her head a little weak, and likely to be turned—eh, Mattie?" said Harriet, in a less excited strain; "well, I am sobered now for ever—and every scrap of romantic feeling has been torn to shreds. I must have been under a spell, for it seems like an evil dream now that I could ever have thought of loving that man."

"And they took your part at the station?"

"Yes,—and gave me advice, and were kind to me, and he who attempted to deceive me skulked back into the carriage, muttering a hundred excuses, which I did not hear. The gentleman who had listened to my story, and been prepared to defend me, had it been necessary, followed Mr. Darcy to the carriage, added a few stern words, and then returned to offer me advice how to proceed. He was a strange, eccentric man, very harsh even with me in his speech, and disposed to preach a sermon on the warning I had had, as though I were not likely to take a lesson from my over-confidence, after all that had happened. But he was very kind in act, and meant all for my good, though he might have spared me just a little more. He consulted the railway time-tables for me, made many inquiries of the guards, whom he appeared to disbelieve, for he went back to the time-tables again; finally told me that there was no train till a quarter past five by which I could reach home. He showed me an hotel adjacent to the station, and left me there, after again upbraiding me for my want of judgment; and at a quarter past five—what an age it seemed before that time came round!—I left Ashford once again for home."

"And are here safe from danger—to make my heart light again with the sight of you. Well, my dear, we'll think it all an ugly dream—and shut him away in it for ever."

"And now—what will the world think of me?—how much of the story will it believe, Mattie?" was the scornful answer.

"What will the world know of it? You and I can keep the secret between us. Mr. Darcy will not boast of his humiliation. The old people need not be harassed and perplexed by all that has happened this night."

"No, no—all an ugly dream, as you say, Mattie!" remarked Harriet; "perhaps it is best, and a woman's fame is hard to establish, on her own explanation of such a history as mine. Let it sink. I am verily ashamed of it. My blood will boil at every chance allusion that associates itself with last night. Oh! my poor, dear, truthful Sid, to think of turning away from you and believing in a heartless villain."

"Ah! Sidney!" exclaimed Mattie.

"Whatever happens—whatever the future may bring—that letter, Mattie, must be destroyed. It is a false statement. We must secure it and destroy it. With time before me, and the dark memory shut out, how I will love that faithful heart!"

"Trust the letter to me—trust—oh! the shop, the shop all this while!—and I haven't told you my story."

"Presently then, Mattie. I would go down now."

"Yes, I will go down. I have been very neglectful of business in my joy at seeing you again. It did not seem possible a few hours ago that all would have ended fairly like this. I am so happy—so very happy now, dear Harriet!"

She shook Harriet by both hands, kissed her once more, and even cried a little before she made a hasty dash from the room to the stairs. At the second landing, outside Mr. Hinchford's apartments, she remembered the letter—the evidence of Harriet's past romance in which Sidney Hinchford played no part.

Mattie pictured the future as very bright and glowing after this—the two who had been ever kind to her, and helped so greatly towards her better life, would come together after all, and make the best and truest couple in the world!

Mattie's training—moral training it may be called—was scarcely a perfect one. She had been taught what was honest and truthful; she was far away for ever from the old life; but the fine feelings—the sensitiveness to the minutiæ of goodness—were wanting just then. The means to the end were not particularly to be studied, so that the end was good. Harriet had done no wrong, merely been duped by a specious scamp for awhile; but keep the story dark for the sake of the suspicions it cast on minds inclined to doubt good in anything—and for the sake of general peace, make away with the letter—Sidney Hinchford's property as much as the locket she stole from him when she was eleven years of age.

Harriet Wesden was silent from fear and shame; her nature was a timid one, and shrank back from painful avowals; Mattie did not look at the subject in the best light, and thought of promoting happiness by secrecy, a dangerous experiment, that may tend at any moment to an explosion. Mattie opened the drawing-room door softly and looked in. Mr. Hinchford had not appeared yet, and she entered and went direct to the mantel-piece, on which the letter had lain ever since its arrival. The letter was gone!

"Oh! dear!—oh! dear!—what's to be done now?" cried Mattie, looking from the centre table to the side table on which was Sidney's desk, unlocked. Mattie did not think of appearances when she opened the desk and began turning over its contents with a hasty hand—a suspicious-looking operation, in which she was discovered by Mr. Hinchford, who entered the room suddenly.

"Mattie," he said, sternly, "I should not have thought that you would have been guilty of this meanness."

Mattie, with her bonnet and shawl on, and awry from her past movements, with her face pale and haggard from want of sleep, remained with her hands in the desk, looking hard at the new comer. Her instinct was to tell the truth—there was no harm in it.

"I am looking for the letter which came for Mr. Sidney—I want it back."

"Want it back!—what letter?"

"The letter which has been on the mantel-piece all the week—it was Miss Harriet's—she wishes to have it back, to put something else in it."

"Bless my soul!—very odd," said Mr. Hinchford; "I'll give it to Miss Harriet myself—there's no occasion to rummage my boy's desk about. I don't like it, Mattie—I am extremely displeased."

"I am very sorry," said Mattie, submissively; "I did not think what I was doing. And you will give the letter to Miss Harriet?"

"It's in the breast-pocket of my coat—I'll give it her."

Mattie cowered before the flushed face, and the stern look thereon; this man was a friend of hers, too—one of the rescuers!—whom she would always bear in kind remembrance; she went softly across the room to the door, veering suddenly round to lay her hands upon his arm.

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Hinchford," she said; "it was all done without a moment's thought. You, for the first time in your life, will not be angry with me?"

"No, no, no, no," repeated the old gentleman, taken aback by this appeal, and softening at once; "I don't suppose you meant anything wrong, Mattie."

"Thank you."

Mattie went down-stairs in a better frame of mind, and yet ashamed at having been detected in a crooked action by a gentleman who always spoke so much of straightforwardness, and had a son who excelled in that difficult accomplishment. She was vexed at the impulse now—what would any man less generous in his ideas have thought of her?

"Never mind," was Mattie's consolation, "I meant no harm—I meant well. And all will end well now, and everybody be so happy. What a change from the terrible thoughts of only a few hours ago!"

She could think of nothing but Harriet Wesden's safety, and her own minor escapade was of little consequence. Thinking of Harriet again, and rejoicing in the brighter thoughts which the last hours had brought with it, she opened the door at the foot of the stairs and went at once into the shop.

Mr. Wesden was standing behind the counter, waiting upon a customer, as though he had never left Great Suffolk Street, and retiring from business had been only a dream.

CHAPTER XII.

A SHORT WARNING.

Mattie stood in her disordered walking-dress, gazing at the stationer, for whose presence she could not account; Mr. Wesden looked across the counter at her.

"Will you go into the parlour, please?" he said at last.

"In the parlour!—ye—es, sir."

There was something wrong—radically and irretrievably wrong this time; however greatly Mr. Wesden had changed, he had never looked so strangely or spoken so harshly as he did at that time. Even the customer whom he was serving, and who knew Mattie, turned round and glanced also in her direction.

"Robbery!—there—there's been no more robbery!" gasped Mattie, her thoughts darting off at a tangent in the direction of her old trouble.

"You can go into the parlour," he repeated, as harshly as before; "I'll be with you in a minute."

Mattie went into the parlour, took off the bonnet and shawl that, she had so long forgotten, and which must have added to Mr. Wesden's perplexity, and then sat down, with her face towards the shop, to await her master's pleasure—and displeasure! There was trouble in store for her—perhaps for Harriet—Mr. Wesden had discovered a great deal, and she had to bear the first shock of the storm. She could see Mr. Wesden's face from her position; even at that distance it seemed as if the innumerable lines in it had been cut deeper since she had seen it last, and the heavy grey brows shadowed more completely the eyes. He was not his usual self either—the quick glance of the watcher noticed how his hands shook as he served the customer, and that he fumbled with the change in a manner very new and uncharacteristic for him. His habits, or his caution, had even undergone a change; for, as the news-boy came in at the street-door, he told him to go behind the counter and attend to the customers till he returned. Then he entered the parlour, still flushed and trembling, yet so stern, and leaned his two hands on the table till it creaked beneath the pressure which he put upon it.

"Mattie," he said at last, "I think it's quite time that you and I said good-bye to one another!"

"Oh! sir!—what?" Mattie could only ejaculate.

"I've been thinking it over for some time—putting it off—giving you another trial—hoping that I was even mistaken in you—but things get worse and worse, and this last news is a settler!"

"Mr. Wesden, there must be some mistake."

"No, there isn't—don't interrupt me—don't make any more excuses, for I shan't believe 'em."

"Go on, sir," said Mattie, impetuously, "I don't understand."

"You need not fly in a passion, if you don't," he corrected.

"I'm not in a passion, Mr. Wesden—you will think wrongly of me."

"Just listen to this—just deny this if you can. You left my house in the middle of the night—you have been up all night, and God knows where—you did not come back to this house—you, who have no friends to go to—until half-past six o'clock this morning."

Mattie sat thunderstruck at this charge, so true in its assertion, and yet the suspicions which it led to so easily refuted, or—she drew a long breath and held her peace at the thought—so easily transferred!

"You can't deny this," continued Mr. Wesden, in the same hard manner; "how long it's been going on, or what bad company has led you astray, I can't say. But you haven't acted like a young woman who meant well—you've been getting worse and worse with every day."

"It isn't true!" cried Mattie, indignantly; "I——"

She paused again.

"Ah! don't give me excuses," he said; "I'm an old man who knows the world, and won't believe in them. I wouldn't believe in my own daughter, if she acted as you have done, or was ever so ready at excuses. No honest girl—I'm sorry to say it, Mattie—would ever, without a fair reason, be walking the streets, friendless and alone, at such unnatural hours."

"Will you not believe me, when I tell you truly, without a blush in my face, that as God's my judge, I went out with a motive of which even you would approve."

"What was it?"

"I—I cannot tell you that yet. Presently, perhaps—if you will only give me time—not now."

Mr. Wesden shook his head.

"Mattie," he replied, "it won't do! It isn't what I've been used to, and I can't wait till you have invented a story and——"

"Invented!" shrieked Mattie, leaping to her feet, "what more!—what more have you to charge an innocent girl, who has thought of nothing but serving you honestly from the time you took pity on her wretchedness? You have turned against me; if you are tired of me, tell me so plainly—but don't talk as if I were a liar and a thief still—I will not have it!"

"You put a bold face upon it, and that's a bad sign," said Mr. Wesden; "where there's no shame, only bounce, it takes away all the pity of the thing, and makes me firmer."

The table creaked once more with the extra pressure of his hands; the flush died away from the face, whereon settled an expression more steely and invulnerable.

"Oh! sir—how you have altered! What do you think that I have done!" cried the perplexed Mattie.

"See here," said Mr. Wesden; "I don't wish to rake up everything, but as you put it to me, I'll just show you how foolish it is to brave it out like this. I'm very sorry; I can't make it out, altering for the better as you had—it's bad company, I suppose. First," he removed his hands from the table, and began checking off the items on his fingers, "there's money missing up-stairs—a cash-box opened, and only——"

"My God!—has that thought rankled so long?" interrupted Mattie; "I don't wonder at the rest, if you begin like that with me. I'll go away—I'll go away!"

"It didn't rankle—I gave you the benefit of the doubt," said Mr. Wesden; "I wouldn't believe it, but I fancied that you were altering, and that something was wrong somewhere. It looked at least as if you were careless, and I thought the house might get robbed, or catch fire, or anything after that—and it disturbed my mind much; I couldn't sleep for thinking of you—and one night I came over here very late, and you were up talking and laughing with a young man in the shop, in the dead of night."

"That, too!" cried Mattie; "do you suspect him?"

"I suspected you, that's enough to say just now."

"More than enough!" was the bitter answer.

"And then a parcel disappears, and there's a lame excuse for that—and a policeman finds you in Kent Street at a receiver's house—the house of a noted thief, that you must have known long ago——"

"I went there—but no matter, you'll not believe me," said Mattie.

"And so I was obliged to have you watched for my own protection's sake, and you were seen to leave the house last night, and come back in a cab after the shop was open. And if all that's not enough to drive a business man wild, why, I never was a man fit for business at all."

Mattie gathered up her bonnet and shawl from the chair on which they had been placed, and proceeded to put them on again, keeping her dark eyes fixed on Mr. Wesden's face.

"There's only one thing which I'll agree with, sir," she said, her voice faltering despite her effort to keep firm, "and that's the first speech you made me. It's quite time that you and I said 'good-bye' to one another!"

"Well—it is!"

"I don't know whether you wish it or not—I don't care!—but I will go away at once, trusting in Him whom your wife taught me first to pray to. I will go away without anger in my heart against you—for oh! you have been very good and kind to me, and I shall be grateful again when to-day's hard words go further and further back. I will hope in the time when you will know all, and be sorry that you lost your trust in me so soon. Better to doubt me than—others?"

She corrected herself in time; she remembered her promise to Harriet. She saw how easy it was for a few errors, a few mistakes to make this strange man forget all the good efforts of a life—deceived in Mr. Wesden as she had been, she could not gauge in those excited moments the depths of his affection for his daughter.

In the avowal there would be danger to Harriet; so, for Harriet's sake, let her take the blame and go away. Harriet could only have cleared up the last mystery—the rest affected herself. She had had never more than half a character—she rose from crime, and its antecedents rose again with her at the first suspicion against her truthful conduct. It was very hard to go away—but it was her only step, and he wished it also—he, who had been almost a father to her until then.

"I'll pack my box, and leave at once, sir—if you don't mind."

"No," was the gloomy response.

He was deceived in Mattie still; he had hoped that she would have confessed to everything, to the new and awful temptations that had beset her lately, and prayed for his mercy and forgiveness—begged for his help and moral strength to lead her from the dark road she was pursuing. He was disappointed by her defiance—by her assumption of an innocence in which he could not believe; and he could only see that her plans were too readily formed, and that she had already fixed upon her future associates and home. He was amazed at her way of encountering his charges; and as he had been only a business-man all his life, he could not understand her.

Mattie left the room, and he turned into his shop again, and dismissed the news-boy from his post of promotion. The matter had worried him, and was still worrying him. The dénouement was not satisfactory, and the world was hardening very much, or becoming too complex in its machinery for him. He had found Mattie out, and it had all ended just as he feared it would; and still his head ached, and his thoughts perplexed him!

He counted the arrears of Mattie's salary, and put it on the back shelf, ready for her when she came down, knocking it all over the minute afterwards, and sending two shillings under the shop-board, where the shutters and gas-meter were. He made mistakes with the next customer in his change, and would not believe it was his error, although he paid the man rather than get into a fresh dispute at that instant; he rummaged from a whole packet of printed notices he dealt in, a "THIS SHOP AND BUSINESS TO BE DISPOSED OF," and stuck it with wafers in the window, upside down. He would retire from business in earnest, and not make-believe any longer; he should be more composed in mind—more happy, when all this was no longer a burden to him.

He served his customers absently, and wondered—for he was a good and just man at heart—whether he was acting for the best after all; whether it was quite Christian-like to give up the child whom he had rescued from the cruel streets, five years ago, come Christmas.

CHAPTER XIII.

LEAVE-TAKINGS.

Mattie went to her room and packed her box with trembling hands. She was very agitated still; there were many conflicting thoughts to disturb her natural equanimity. Regret at going away from the home wherein had begun her better life; indignation at the false accusations that had been made against her, and made in so hard and uncharitable a fashion; doubts of the future stretching before her, impenetrable and dusky, and the life to begin again in some way, to which she tried to give a thought, even in those early moments, and failed in utterly.