ard she was to go to church with her
aunt Susan. I found out afterwards the child had always gone alone.

Phoebe was evidently expecting me, for her eyes were fixed on the door
as I entered, and the same shadowy smile I had seen once before swept
over her wan features when she saw me. She seemed ready and eager to
talk, but I adhered to my usual programme. I was rather afraid that our
conversation would excite her, so I wanted to quiet her first. I sang a
few of my favourite hymns, and then read the evening psalms. She heard
me somewhat reluctantly, but when I had finished her face cleared, and
without any preamble she commenced her story.

I never remember that recital without pain. It positively wrung my heart
to listen to her. I had heard the outline of her sad story from her
sister's lips, but it had lacked colour; it had been a simple statement
of facts, and no more.

But now Phoebe's passionate words seemed to clothe it with power; the
very sight of the ghastly and almost distracted face on the pillow gave
a miserable pathos to the story. It was in vain to check excitement while
the unhappy creature poured out the history of her wrongs: the old old
story, of a credulous woman's heart being trampled upon and tortured by
an unworthy lover, was enacted again before me.

'I just worshipped the ground he walked on, and he threw me aside like a
broken toy,' she said over and over again. 'And the worst of it is that,
villain as he is, I cannot unlove him, though I am that mad with him
sometimes that I could almost murder him.'

'Love is strong as death, and jealousy is cruel as the grave,' I
muttered, half to myself, but she overheard me.

'Ay, that is just true,' she returned eagerly: 'there are times when I
hate Robert and Nancy and would like to haunt them. Did I not tell you,
Miss Garston, that hell had begun with me already? I was never a good
woman,--never, not even when I was happy and Robert loved me. I was
just full of him, and wanted nothing else in heaven and earth; and when
the trouble came, and father and mother died, and I lay here like a
log,--only a log has not got a living heart in it,--I seemed to go mad
with the anger and unhappiness, and I felt "the worm that dieth not, and
the fire that is not quenched."'

I stooped over and wiped her poor lips and poor head, for she was
fearfully exhausted, and then in a perfect passion of pity closed her
face between my hands and bade God bless her.

'What