, throwing her arms round Dinah's neck, "I will
speak...I will tell...I won't hide it any more."

But the tears and sobs were too violent. Dinah raised her gently from
her knees and seated her on the pallet again, sitting down by her side.
It was a long time before the convulsed throat was quiet, and even
then they sat some time in stillness and darkness, holding each other's
hands. At last Hetty whispered, "I did do it, Dinah...I buried it in the
wood...the little baby...and it cried...I heard it cry...ever such a way
off...all night...and I went back because it cried."

She paused, and then spoke hurriedly in a louder, pleading tone.

"But I thought perhaps it wouldn't die--there might somebody find it. I
didn't kill it--I didn't kill it myself. I put it down there and covered
it up, and when I came back it was gone....It was because I was so
very miserable, Dinah...I didn't know where to go...and I tried to kill
myself before, and I couldn't. Oh, I tried so to drown myself in the
pool, and I couldn't. I went to Windsor--I ran away--did you know? I
went to find him, as he might take care of me; and he was gone; and then
I didn't know what to do. I daredn't go back home again--I couldn't bear
it. I couldn't have bore to look at anybody, for they'd have scorned me.
I thought o' you sometimes, and thought I'd come to you, for I didn't
think you'd be cross with me, and cry shame on me. I thought I could
tell you. But then the other folks 'ud come to know it at last, and I
couldn't bear that. It was partly thinking o' you made me come toward
Stoniton; and, besides, I was so frightened at going wandering about
till I was a beggar-woman, and had nothing; and sometimes it seemed as
if I must go back to the farm sooner than that. Oh, it was so dreadful,
Dinah...I was so miserable...I wished I'd never been born into this
world. I should never like to go into the green fields again--I hated
'em so in my misery."

Hetty paused again, as if the sense of the past were too strong upon her
for words.

"And then I got to Stoniton, and I began to feel frightened that night,
because I was so near home. And then the little baby was born, when I
didn't expect it; and the thought came into my mind that I might get
rid of it and go home again. The thought came all of a sudden, as I was
lying in the bed, and it got stronger and stronger...I longed so to go
back again...I couldn't bear being so lonely and coming to beg for want.
And it g