as the girl desired, and made her pillow more
comfortable.

"Ay, that's better," she said. "Weel, we met, and I begged him again,
begged him as I thought I should never beg onybody to do anything--for
I am a proud lass--to marry me. But he wouldn't. He said he wur going
to marry Miss Bolitho, if only out of spite to Paul Stepaside. So I
said to him, 'What has Paul Stepaside to do with it?' And he laughed.
So then I axed him what I wur to do, and he told me that I might go to
Manchester and get my living as best I could. And after that hell got
hold of me, but I kept quiet. And I said, 'Good-night, Ned,' and he
said, 'Good-night, Emily. Be a sensible lass.' And then he turned
round to go back home, and then I up with the knife and stabbed him in
the back. I thought my heart was going to leap into my mouth when I
saw him fall on his face without a word and without a sound, and I
never stayed a minute, but I run all the way home."

The scratch of the lawyer's pen continued some seconds after the girl
had ceased speaking.

"That's all," she said. "I'm glad I've told you. A've been i' 'ell
for mony a week, and, and--but there, it's all over now!"

"Just a minute," said the lawyer. "Let me read through what you have
said."

"I can noan bear it; my head's swimmin' again!"

Dr. White administered another dose of powerful stimulant, and the girl
breathed more easily.

"You can bear it now, Emily," he said kindly. "And you've been a brave
lass."

"I know I ought not to have killed him," said the girl, "but he treated
me bad, and he said things to me which no man ought ever to say to ony
lass. But theer----"

The lawyer came close to the bed and read the girl's confession aloud.

"Ay, that's right," she said when he had finished. "It's all true,
every word, so help me God!"

"Will you sign your name here?" said the lawyer.

They propped her up in bed, and a pen was placed in her hand. Judge
Bolitho was afraid for the moment that she would never have strength
enough to perform the task of writing her name; but the girl, almost by
a superhuman effort, conquered her weakness. She seized the pen and
wrote her name.

"Thank you," he said. "That will do."

The girl lay back on her pillow, panting for her very life. A minute
later the document was witnessed by the others in the room.

Two hours later Emily Dodson was dead.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE HOME-COMING

The warder came into Paul's ce