speak calmly, she would fain not speak at all before a stranger.
In a minute or so she said:

'I had a daughter--one Mary Fitzgerald,'--then her strong nature
mastered her strong will, and she cried out, with a trembling, wailing
cry: 'Oh, man! what of her?--what of her?'

She rose from her seat, and came and clutched at my arm, and looked in
my eyes. There she read, as I suppose, my utter ignorance of what had
become of her child; for she went blindly back to her chair, and sat
rocking herself and softly moaning, as if I were not there; I not
daring to speak to the lone and awful woman. After a little pause, she
knelt down before the picture of our Lady of the Holy Heart, and spoke
to her by all the fanciful and poetic names of the Litany.

'O Rose of Sharon! O Tower of David! O Star of the Sea! have you no
comfort for my sore heart? Am I for ever to hope? Grant me at least
despair!'--and so on she went, heedless of my presence. Her prayers
grew wilder and wilder, till they seemed to me to touch on the borders
of madness and blasphemy. Almost involuntarily, I spoke as if to stop
her.

'Have you any reason to think that your daughter is dead?'

She rose from her knees, and came and stood before me.

'Mary Fitzgerald is dead,' said she. 'I shall never see her again in
the flesh. No tongue ever told me. But I know she is dead. I have
yearned so to see her, and my heart's will is fearful and strong: it
would have drawn her to me before now, if she had been a wanderer on
the other side of the world. I wonder often it has not drawn her out of
the grave to come and stand before me, and hear me tell her how I loved
her. For, sir, we parted unfriends.'

I knew nothing but the dry particulars needed for my lawyer's quest,
but I could not help feeling for the desolate woman; and she must have
read the unusual sympathy with her wistful eyes.

'Yes, sir, we did. She never knew how I loved her; and we parted
unfriends; and I fear me that I wished her voyage might not turn out
well, only meaning,--O, blessed Virgin! you know I only meant that she
should come home to her mother's arms as to the happiest place on
earth; but my wishes are terrible--their power goes beyond my
thought--and there is no hope for me, if my words brought Mary harm.'

'But,' I said, 'you do not know that she is dead. Even now, you hoped
she might be alive. Listen to me,' and I told her the tale I have
already told you, giving it all in the driest man