orted it, and I was sent down. We've taken the body to Jimmeny's
pub., and sent for the coroner, at all events."

Dawn and Andrew howled together in a frightened manner, while the
sensible Carry, who never lost her head, admonished them--

"Don't be jackdaws. That won't mend matters. Perhaps it isn't half as
bad as some make out. Things never are when you get the right hang of
them."

"Things are bad enough anyhow, but the way to mend 'em ain't to be
snivelling," rapped out grandma, giving Dawn and Andrew a shaking that
braced them up.

Things were indeed bad enough, and nothing could mend them. They had
gone beyond repair. It transpired that my senses had been correct, and
poor Miss Flipp had _not_ returned that moonlit night as I lay
listening to the passing trains. She had ended her ruined life by
weighting her feet and dropping into the pretty stretch of water under
the bridge, where the locomotives rushed by like thunder, and from
where could be seen the twinkling electric lights of one of the oldest
towns in Australia.

The inquest, at which we all had to appear, elicited information that
fairly stood poor grandma's hair on end. It was a great blow to find
that she had been harbouring a woman who was not as Caesar's wife, and
that it was fear of the penalty of her divergence from what is
accepted as virtue, had driven her to take her life ere she had
transmitted the tribulation of being to a nameless child.

Nothing was cleared up regarding her antecedents. The person by whom
she was supposed to be recommended to Mrs Clay knew of no such
individual, and no one came to claim her.

Her uncle, it was discovered, had a day or two previously sailed for
America on urgent business, and after the girl's death an affectionate
letter for her arrived from him. She had left nothing to fix the blame
where it belonged, but with a misdirected loyalty so common in her
sex had paid all the debt her frail self.

The post on the day of her death brought me a pathetic little note, in
which she stated that she wished to bear the whole blame; a woman
always had to in any case, and as she could not face it she had
decided upon death. She had written this to me because she felt I had
had an inkling of how matters had been with her, and she thanked me
that I had kept silent, in conjunction with the observation that it
was not usual for such as she to meet with forbearance from those who
had had sense to preserve their respectabi