“I have done it at last.  I am ready.  Take me away.  I shall be hanged.  I don’t care.  I confess it.  Only don’t let the people stare at me.”

Her lips went on moving, but I could hear no more till suddenly she broke out—­

“Oh! my baby! my baby!” and gave a cry of such agony as I hope never to hear again while I live.

At this moment I heard a loud knocking at the shop-door, which was the only entrance to the house, and remembering that I had locked it, I went down to see who was there.  I found Thomas Weir, the father, accompanied by Dr Duncan, whom, as it happened, he had had some difficulty in finding.  Thomas had sped to his daughter the moment he heard the rumour of what had happened, and his fierceness in clearing the shop had at least prevented the neighbours, even in his absence, from intruding further.

We went up together to Catherine’s room.  Thomas said nothing to me about what had happened, and I found it difficult even to conjecture from his countenance what thoughts were passing through his mind.

Catherine looked from one to another of us, as if she did not know the one from the other.  She made no motion to rise from her bed, nor did she utter a word, although her lips would now and then move as if moulding a sentence.  When Dr Duncan, after looking at the child, proceeded to take him from her, she gave him one imploring look, and yielded with a moan; then began to stare hopelessly at the ceiling again.  The doctor carried the child into the next room, and the grandfather followed.

“You see what you have driven me to!” cried Catherine, the moment I was left alone with her.  “I hope you are satisfied.”

The words went to my very soul.  But when I looked at her, her eyes were wandering about over the ceiling, and I had and still have difficulty in believing that she spoke the words, and that they were not an illusion of my sense, occasioned by the commotion of my own feelings.  I thought it better, however, to leave her, and join the others in the sitting-room.  The first thing I saw there was Thomas on his knees, with a basin of water, washing away the blood of his grandson from his daughter’s floor.  The very sight of the child had hitherto been nauseous to him, and his daughter had been beyond the reach of his forgiveness.  Here was the end of it—­the blood of the one shed by the hand of the other, and the father of both, who had disdained both, on his knees, wiping it up.  Dr Duncan was giving the child brandy; for he had found that he had been sick, and that the loss of blood was the chief cause of his condition.  The blood flowed from a wound on the head, extending backwards from the temple, which had evidently been occasioned by a fall upon the fender, where the blood lay both inside and out; and the doctor took the sickness as a sign that the brain had not been seriously injured by the blow.  In a few minutes he said—­

“I think he’ll come round.”