“Have you seen my poor sister?”

“I was called last night while at Mrs. Hicks’s cottage, and went almost at once.  It’s very terrible—­very.  She’ll get brain fever if we’re not careful.  Such a shock!  She was walking alone, down in the croft by the river—­all in a tremendously heavy dew too.  She was dry-eyed and raved, poor girl.  I may say she was insane at that sad moment.  ’Weep for yourself!’ she said to me.  ’Let this place weep for itself, for there’s a great man has died.  He was here and lived here and nobody knew—­nobody but his mother and I knew what he was.  He had to beg his bread almost, and God let him; but the sin of it is on those around him—­you and the rest.’  So she spoke, poor child.  These are not exactly her words, but something like them.  I got her indoors to her mother and sent her a draught.  I’ve just come from confining Mrs. Woods, and I’ll walk down and see your sister now before I go home if you like.  I hope she may be sleeping.”

Will readily agreed to this suggestion; and together the two men proceeded to the valley.

But many things had happened since the night.  When Doctor Parsons left Mrs. Blanchard, she had prevailed upon Chris to go to bed, and then herself departed to the village and sat with Mrs. Hicks for an hour.  Returning, she found her daughter apparently asleep, and, rather than wake her, left the doctor’s draught unopened; yet Chris had only simulated slumber, and as soon as her mother retreated to her own bed, she rose, dressed, crept from the house, and hastened through the night to where her lover lay.

The first awful stroke had fallen, but the elasticity of the human mind which at first throws off and off such terrible shocks, and only after the length of many hours finally accepts them as fact, saved Chris Blanchard from going mad.  Happily she could not thus soon realise the truth.  It recurred, like the blows of a sledge, upon her brain, but between these cruel reminders of the catastrophe, the knowledge of Clement’s death escaped her memory entirely, and more than once, while roaming the dew alone, she asked herself suddenly what she was doing and why she was there.  Then the mournful answer knelled to her heart, and the recurrent spasms of that first agony slowly, surely settled into one dead pain, as the truth was seared into her knowledge.  A frenzied burst of anger succeeded, and under its influence she spoke to Doctor Parsons, who approached her beside the river and with tact and patience at length prevailed upon her to enter her home.  She cursed the land that had borne him, the hamlet wherein he had dwelt; and her mother, not amazed at her fierce grief, found each convulsive ebullition of sorrow natural to the dark hour, and soothed her as best she could.  Then the elder woman departed a while, not knowing the truth and feeling such a course embraced the deeper wisdom.