ympathy!_ who was ever yet fed, warmed,
comforted by _sympathy_? Marcella robs that woman of the only thing that
the human being should want at such a moment--solitude. Why should we
force on the poor what to us would be an outrage?"

Meanwhile Marcella battled through the wind and rain, thankful that the
warm spring burst was over, and that the skies no longer mocked this
horror which was beneath them.

At the entrance to the village she stopped, and took the basket from the
little maid.

"Now, Ruth, you can go home. Run quick, it is so dark, Ruth!"

"Yes, miss."

The young country girl trembled. Miss Boyce's tragic passion in this
matter had to some extent infected the whole household in which she
lived.

"Ruth, when you say your prayers to-night, pray God to comfort the
poor,--and to punish the cruel!"

"Yes, miss," said the girl, timidly, and ready to cry. The lantern she
held flashed its light on Miss Boyce's white face and tall form. Till
her mistress turned away she did not dare to move; that dark eye, so
wide, full, and living, roused in her a kind of terror.

On the steps of the cottage Marcella paused. She heard voices inside--or
rather the rector's voice reading.

A thought of scorn rose in her heart. "How long will the poor endure
this religion--this make-believe--which preaches patience, _patience_!
when it ought to be urging war?"

But she went in softly, so as not to interrupt. The rector looked up and
made a grave sign of the head as she entered; her own gesture forbade
any other movement in the group; she took a stool beside Willie, whose
makeshift bed of chairs and pillows stood on one side of the fire; and
the reading went on.

Since Minta Hurd had returned with Marcella from Widrington Gaol that
afternoon, she had been so ill that a doctor had been sent for. He had
bade them make up her bed downstairs in the warm; and accordingly a
mattress had been laid on the settle, and she was now stretched upon it.
Her huddled form, the staring whiteness of the narrow face and closed
eyelids, thrown out against the dark oak of the settle, and the
disordered mass of grizzled hair, made the centre of the cottage.

Beside her on the floor sat Mary Harden, her head bowed over the rough
hand she held, her eyes red with weeping. Fronting them, beside a little
table, which held a small paraffin lamp, sat the young rector, his
Testament in his hand, his slight boy's figure cast in sharp shadow on
the cot