five days
she and her baby were both dead. The house seemed no longer a fit place
for me, and her husband was as one distracted; yet I had nowhere else to
go to.

It was then that a woman whom I had seen before and liked little came to
my assistance. Her name was Elizabeth Gaunt.

She was an Anabaptist and, as I thought, fanatical. She spent her life
in good works, and cared nothing for dress, or food, or pleasure. Her
manner to me had been stern, and I thought her poor and of no account;
for what money she had was given mostly to others. But when she knew of
my trouble she offered me a place in her house, bargaining only that I
should help her in the work of it.

"My maid that I had has left me to be married," she said; "'twould be
waste to hire another while you sit idle."

I was in too evil a plight to be particular, so that I went with her
willingly. And this I must confess, that the tasks she set me were
irksome enough, but yet I was happier with her than I had been with my
cousin Alstree, for I had the less time for evil and regretful thoughts.

Now it befell that one night, when we were alone together, there came a
knocking at the house door.

[Sidenote: A Strange Visitor]

I went to open it, and found a tall man standing on the threshold. I was
used to those that came to seek charity, who were mostly women or
children, the poor, the sick, or the old. But this man, as I saw by the
light I carried with me, was sturdy and well built; moreover, the cloak
that was wrapped about him was neither ragged or ill-made, only the hat
that he had upon his head was crushed in the brim.

He stepped inside and shut the door behind him, and this frightened me
somewhat, for we were two lone women, and the terror of my country
breeding clung to me. There was, it is true, nothing in the house worth
stealing, but yet a stranger might not know this.

"Doth Mrs. Gaunt still live in this house?" he asked. "Is she not a
woman that is very, charitable and ready to help those that are in
trouble?"

I looked at him, wondering what his trouble might be, for he seemed
well-to-do and comfortable, except for the hat-brim. Yet he spoke with
urgency, and it flashed upon me that his need might not be for himself,
but another.

I was about to answer him when he, whose eye had left me to wander round
the narrow passage where we were, caught sight of a rim of light under a
doorway.

"Is she in that chamber, and alone? What, then, are