on her.

Vague thoughts of Nettleton flitted through her mind. She said to
herself that she would find some quiet place where she could bear her
child, and give it to decent people to keep; and then she would go out
like Julia Hawes and earn its living and hers. She knew that girls of
that kind sometimes made enough to have their children nicely cared for;
and every other consideration disappeared in the vision of her baby,
cleaned and combed and rosy, and hidden away somewhere where she could
run in and kiss it, and bring it pretty things to wear. Anything,
anything was better than to add another life to the nest of misery on
the Mountain....

The old woman and the children were still sleeping when Charity rose
from her mattress. Her body was stiff with cold and fatigue, and she
moved slowly lest her heavy steps should rouse them. She was faint with
hunger, and had nothing left in her satchel; but on the table she saw
the half of a stale loaf. No doubt it was to serve as the breakfast of
old Mrs. Hyatt and the children; but Charity did not care; she had her
own baby to think of. She broke off a piece of the bread and ate
it greedily; then her glance fell on the thin faces of the sleeping
children, and filled with compunction she rummaged in her satchel for
something with which to pay for what she had taken. She found one of
the pretty chemises that Ally had made for her, with a blue ribbon run
through its edging. It was one of the dainty things on which she had
squandered her savings, and as she looked at it the blood rushed to her
forehead. She laid the chemise on the table, and stealing across the
floor lifted the latch and went out....

The morning was icy cold and a pale sun was just rising above the
eastern shoulder of the Mountain. The houses scattered on the hillside
lay cold and smokeless under the sun-flecked clouds, and not a human
being was in sight. Charity paused on the threshold and tried to
discover the road by which she had come the night before. Across the
field surrounding Mrs. Hyatt's shanty she saw the tumble-down house in
which she supposed the funeral service had taken place. The trail
ran across the ground between the two houses and disappeared in the
pine-wood on the flank of the Mountain; and a little way to the right,
under a wind-beaten thorn, a mound of fresh earth made a dark spot
on the fawn-coloured stubble. Charity walked across the field to the
ground. As she approached it she heard