bed-chamber
within, and a candle burning on the toilet-table.

"Go in there and play," I said. "I want to talk to your mamma."

The child pouted: my proposal did not appear to tempt her. "Give me
something to play with," she said. "I'm tired of my toys. Let me see
what you have got in your pockets."

Her busy little hands began to search in my coat-pockets. I let her take
what she pleased, and so bribed her to run away into the inner room. As
soon as she was out of sight, I approached the poor mother and seated
myself by her side.

"Think of it as I do," I said. "Now that he has forsaken you, he has
left you free to be mine."

She lifted her head instantly; her eyes flashed through her tears.

"Now that he has forsaken me," she answered, "I am more unworthy of you
than ever!"

"Why?" I asked.

"Why!" she repeated, passionately. "Has a woman not reached the lowest
depths of degradation when she has lived to be deserted by a thief?"

It was hopeless to attempt to reason with her in her present frame of
mind. I tried to attract her attention to a less painful subject by
referring to the strange succession of events which had brought me to
her for the third time. She stopped me impatiently at the outset.

"It seems useless to say once more what we have said on other
occasions," she answered. "I understand what has brought you here. I
have appeared to you again in a vision, just as I appeared to you twice
before."

"No," I said. "Not as you appeared to me twice before. This time I saw
you with the child by your side."

That reply roused her. She started, and looked nervously toward the
bed-chamber door.

"Don't speak loud!" she said. "Don't let the child hear us! My dream
of you this time has left a painful impression on my mind. The child is
mixed up in it--and I don't like that. Then the place in which I saw
you is associated--" She paused, leaving the sentence unfinished. "I am
nervous and wretched to-night," she resumed; "and I don't want to speak
of it. And yet, I should like to know whether my dream has misled me, or
whether you really were in that cottage, of all places in the world?"

I was at a loss to understand the embarrassment which she appeared to
feel in putting her question. There was nothing very wonderful, to my
mind, in the discovery that she had been in Suffolk, and that she was
acquainted with Greenwater Broad. The lake was known all over the county
as a favorite resort of picnic parti