as if she had herself risen from a coffin, cried shame on the general
heartlessness with which Jane was used.

Clara held to her resolve. She led Jane into the bedroom, then, with a
parting shot at Miss Peckover, herself entered and locked the door.

'Drink some water, Jane,' she said, doing her best to reassure the
child. 'You're safe for to-night, and we'll see what Mrs. Peckover says
about this when she comes back to-morrow.'

Jane looked at her rescuer with eyes in which eternal gratitude mingled
with fear for the future. She could cry now, poor thing, and so little
by little recover herself. Words to utter her thanks she had none; she
could only look something of what she felt. Clara made her undress and
lie down with little Tom on the mattress. In a quarter of an hour the
candle was extinguished, and but for the wind, which rattled sashes and
doors, and made ghostly sounds in the chimneys, there was silence
throughout the house.

Something awoke Clara before dawn. She sat up, and became aware that
Jane was talking and crying wildly, evidently re-acting in her sleep
the scene of a few hours ago. With difficulty Clara broke her slumber.

'Don't you feel well, Jane?' she asked, noticing a strangeness in the
child's way of replying to her.

'Not very, miss. My head's bad, an' I'm so thirsty. May I drink out of
the jug, miss?'

'Stay where you are. I'll bring it to you.'

Jane drank a great deal. Presently she fell again into slumber, which
was again broken in the same way. Clara did not go to sleep, and as
soon as it was daylight she summoned her father to come and look at the
child. Jane was ill, and, as everyone could see, rapidly grew worse.

CHAPTER V

JANE IS VISITED

At ten o'clock next morning Mrs. Peckover reached home. She was a tall,
big-boned woman of fifty, with an arm like a coalheaver's. She had dark
hair, which shone and was odorous with unguents; a sallow, uncomely
face, and a handsome moustache. Her countenance was more difficult to
read than Clem's; a coarse, and most likely brutal, nature was plain
enough in its lines, but there was also a suggestion of self-restraint,
of sagacity, at all events of cunning--qualities which were decidedly
not inherited by her daughter. With her came the relative whose
presence had been desired at the funeral to-day. This was Mrs. Gully, a
stout person with a very red nose and bleared eyes. The credit of the
family demanded that as many relatives