r, but
felt that she must make some reply.

'You haven't told me where to find the girl, or what you want me to do
with her.'

'I'll fin' oot whaur she bides,' he said, moving again towards the door.

'But what am I to do with her, Robert?'

'That's your pairt. Ye maun fin' oot what to do wi' her. I canna tell ye
that. But gin I was you, I wad gie her a kiss to begin wi'. She's nane
o' yer brazen-faced hizzies, yon. A kiss wad be the savin' o' her.'

'But you may be--. But I have nothing to go upon. She would resent my
interference.'

'She's past resentin' onything. She was gaein' aboot the toon like ane
o' the deid 'at hae naething to say to onybody, an' naebody onything to
say to them. Gin she gangs on like that she'll no be alive lang.'

That night Jessie Hewson disappeared. A mile or two up the river under a
high bank, from which the main current had receded, lay an awful, swampy
place--full of reeds, except in the middle where was one round space
full of dark water and mud. Near this Jessie Hewson was seen about an
hour after Robert had thus pled for her with his angel.

The event made a deep impression upon Robert. The last time that he
saw them, James and his wife were as cheerful as usual, and gave him a
hearty welcome. Jessie was in service, and doing well, they said. The
next time he opened the door of the cottage it was like the entrance to
a haunted tomb. Not a smile was in the place. James's cheeriness was all
gone. He was sitting at the table with his head leaning on his hand. His
Bible was open before him, but he was not reading a word. His wife was
moving listlessly about. They looked just as Jessie had looked that
night--as if they had died long ago, but somehow or other could not get
into their graves and be at rest. The child Jessie had nursed with such
care was toddling about, looking rueful with loss. George had gone to
America, and the whole of that family's joy had vanished from the earth.

The subject was not resumed between Miss St. John and Robert. The next
time he saw her, he knew by her pale troubled face that she had heard
the report that filled the town; and she knew by his silence that it
had indeed reference to the same girl of whom he had spoken to her. The
music would not go right that evening. Mary was distraite, and Robert
was troubled. It was a week or two before there came a change. When the
turn did come, over his being love rushed up like a spring-tide from the
ocean of