er and nearer, and now close to her
very door--wild horses would not have carried Stephen away from the
woman who had saved Ermine.

Haldane's bidding was obeyed. The dawn had scarcely broken on the
following morning, when Stephen and Ermine, with Gib in the arms of the
latter, set forth on their journey to London. Haldane stood in her
doorway to watch them go.

"Thank God!" she said, when she had entirely lost sight of them. "Thank
God, my darling is safe! I can bear anything that comes now. It is
only what such as me have to look for. And Ermine said the good Lord
wouldn't fail them that trusted Him. I'm only a poor ignorant old
woman, and He knows it; but He took the pains to make me, and He'll not
have forgot it; and Ermine says He died for me, and I'm sure He could
never forget that, if He did it. I've done a many ill things, though
I'm not the black witch they reckon me: no, I've had more laid to my
charge than ever I did; but for all that I'm a sinner, I'm afeared, and
I should be sore afeared to meet what's coming if He wouldn't take my
side. But Ermine, she said He would, if I trusted myself to Him."

Haldane clasped her withered hands and looked heavenwards.

"Good Lord!" she said, "I'd fain have Thee on my side, and I do trust
Thee. And if I'm doing it wrong way about, bethink Thee that I'm only a
poor old woman, that never had no chance like, and I mean to do right,
and do put things to rights for me, as Thou wouldst have 'em. Have a
care of my darling, and see her safe: and see me through what's coming,
if Thou wilt be so good. Worlds o' worlds, Amen."

That conclusion was Haldane's misty idea of the proper way to end a
prayer [Note 1]. Perhaps the poor petition found its way above the
stars as readily as the choral services that were then being chanted in
the perfumed cathedrals throughout England.

She went in and shut the door. She did not, as usual, shake her straw
bed and fold up the rug. A spectator might have thought that she had no
heart for it. She only kept up the fire; for though summer was near, it
was not over-warm in the crazy hut, and a cold east wind was blowing.
For the whole of the long day she sat beside it, only now and then
rising to look out of the window, and generally returning to her seat
with a muttered exclamation of "Not yet!" The last time she did this,
she pulled the faded woollen kerchief over her shoulders with a shiver.

"Not yet! I reckon they'll wa