she sobbed.

'Who?' asked Falconer.

'Him--Jesus Christ. I've heard tell, I think, that he was to come again
some day.'

'Why do you ask?'

'Because--' she said, with a fresh burst of tears, which rendered the
words that followed unintelligible. But she recovered herself in a few
moments, and, as if finishing her sentence, put her hand up to her poor,
thin, colourless hair, and said,

'My hair ain't long enough to wipe his feet.'

'Do you know what he would say to you, my girl?' Falconer asked.

'No. What would he say to me? He would speak to me, would he?'

'He would say: Thy sins are forgiven thee.'

'Would he, though? Would he?' she cried, starting up. 'Take me to
him--take me to him. Oh! I forgot. He's dead. But he will come again,
won't he? He was crucified four times, you know, and he must ha' come
four times for that. Would they crucify him again, sir?'

'No, they wouldn't crucify him now--in England at least. They would only
laugh at him, shake their heads at what he told them, as much as to say
it wasn't true, and sneer and mock at him in some of the newspapers.'

'Oh dear! I've been very wicked.'

'But you won't be so any more.'

'No, no, no. I won't, I won't, I won't.'

She talked hurriedly, almost wildly. The coarse old woman tapped her
forehead with her finger. Falconer took the girl's hand.

'What is your name?' he said.

'Nell.'

'What more?'

'Nothing more.'

'Well, Nelly,' said Falconer.

'How kind of you to call me Nelly!' interrupted the poor girl. 'They
always calls me Nell, just.'

'Nelly,' repeated Falconer, 'I will send a lady here to-morrow to take
you away with her, if you like, and tell you how you must do to find
Jesus.--People always find him that want to find him.'

The elderly woman with the rough voice, who had not spoken since he
whispered to her, now interposed with a kind of cowed fierceness.

'Don't go putting humbug into my child's head now, Mr. Falconer--'ticing
her away from her home. Everybody knows my Nell's been an idiot since
ever she was born. Poor child!'

'I ain't your child,' cried the girl, passionately. 'I ain't nobody's
child.'

'You are God's child,' said Falconer, who stood looking on with his eyes
shining, but otherwise in a state of absolute composure.

'Am I? Am I? You won't forget to send for me, sir?'

'That I won't,' he answered.

She turned instantly towards the woman, and snapped her fingers in her
face.

'I don't care tha