She had borne so much and suffered so much during the last few months that nature refused to bear any longer, and it was more than a headache which brought the faintness upon her.  Taking her in her arms, Miss Betsey carried her to her room, and placing her upon the bed, sat down beside her.

“Why are you crying?” she asked, as she saw the great tears roll down Bessie’s cheeks faster than she could wipe them away.

“Because,” Bessie answered, with a choking sob, “I have tried so hard to do right, and have wanted work so much, and just as I have found it, I am afraid I am going to be sick, for I feel so strange and cold, as if all the life had gone from me, and I cannot work any more, and you will have to send me away, and I have nowhere to go, for Stoneleigh is very far away, and I have no money to get there.  Oh, auntie, if I could die!  Life has been so dreary to me!”

Here Bessie broke down entirely, and sobbed for a few moments convulsively, while Miss McPherson was scarcely less agitated.

Kneeling down by the low bed and laying her old face by the side of the young one upon the pillow, she, too, cried for a few moments like a child.  Then, lifting up her head and brushing away her tears with an impatient movement, as if she were ashamed of them, she said: 

“I cannot hold out any longer, and I must tell you that what I have been doing was never intended to last; I was only trying you, to see if you were true, and now that I know you are, do you think I will not take you to my heart as my child, my very own?  I believe I have always loved you, Bessie, since the day your eyes looked at me on the sands of Aberystwyth, and I have wanted you so much, and tried so many times to get you, and right here where I am kneeling now, I have often knelt by this little bed prepared for you years ago, and prayed God to keep you innocent and pure, and send you to me some day.  And he has done all this.  He has kept you pure and good, and send you to me just when I want you most, I am a queer, crabbed old woman, but I believe I can make you happy, and by and by you may learn to love me a little.  Few have ever done that; none in fact, since my mother died, but one, and he—­oh, Bessie, I would give my life to have him back, and more than my life to know that it was well with him.  Charlie, oh, Charlie, my love, my love!”

Bessie’s tears were all dried now, and her arms were around the neck of this strange woman, weeping for her lost love as women never weep save when the memory of that love brings far more pain than joy.

“Dear auntie,” Bessie said, “I do not quite under stand what you mean, but if I can comfort you I will, and work for you, too, I do not in the least mind that, and I must do something to pay—­”