tell, Corp, be quick."

"There's what I come here to tell you. It was no langer syne than
jimply an hour. We thocht the bairn was playing at the gavle-end, and
that Grizel was up the stair. But they werena, and I gaed straight to
Double Dykes. She wasna there, but the bairn was, lying greetin' on
the floor. We found her in the Den, sitting by the burn-side, and she
said we should never see him again, for she had drowned him. We're
sweer, but you'll need to tak' her awa'."

"We shall take her away," David said, and when he and Tommy were left
together he asked: "Do you see what it means?"

"It means that the horrors of her early days have come back to her,
and that she is confusing her mother with herself."

David's hands were clenched. "That is not what I am thinking of. We
have to take her away; they have done far more than we had any right
to ask of them. Sandys, where are we to take her to?"

"Do even you grow tired of her?" Tommy cried.

David said between his teeth: "We hope there will soon be a child in
this house, also. God forgive me, but I cannot bring her back here."

"She cannot be in a house where there is a child!" said Tommy, with a
bitter laugh. "Gemmell, it is Grizel we are speaking of! Do you
remember what she was?"

"I remember."

"Well, where are we to send her?"

David turned his pained eyes full on Tommy.

"No!" Tommy cried vehemently.

"Sandys," said David, firmly, "that is what it has come to. They will
take good care of her." He sat down with a groan. "Have done with
heroics," he said savagely, when Tommy would have spoken. "I have been
prepared for this; there is no other way."

"I have been prepared for it, too," Tommy said, controlling himself;
"but there is another way: I can marry her, and I am going to do it."

"I don't know that I can countenance that," David said, after a pause.
"It seems an infernal shame."

"Don't trouble about me," replied Tommy, hoarsely; "I shall do it
willingly."

And then it was the doctor's turn to laugh. "You!" he said with a
terrible scorn as he looked Tommy up and down. "I was not thinking of
you. All my thoughts were of her. I was thinking how cruel to her if
some day she came to her right mind and found herself tied for life to
the man who had brought her to this pass."

Tommy winced and walked up and down.

"Desire to marry her gone?" asked David, savagely.

"No," Tommy said. He sat down. "You have the key to me, Gemmell," he
went o