Mrs Hume would
never trust her child to the care of a stranger. The mother thought
that she would neither be safe nor happy with any other. And then she
added:

"I could only ask them to let me take her if I could have you also to
care for her. I cannot say certainly that she will ever be strong and
well, but I have good hope that she may be much stronger than she is
now. Think about it. You need not decide at once, but the sooner the
better. We have no time to lose."

Allison listened with changing colour and downcast eyes.

"I would go with you and the child. I would be glad to go--but--"

She rose and came a little nearer to the sofa on which Mrs Esselmont
was lying.

"But I cannot go without telling you something first, and you may not
wish me to go when you have heard."

"Allison," said Mrs Esselmont, "stand where I can see your face."

She regarded her a moment and then she said gravely:

"I cannot believe that you have anything to say to me that will change
my thoughts of you. You have won the respect and confidence of your
master and mistress, who ought to know you well by this time. I am
willing to trust you as they have done without knowing more of you than
they have seen with their own eyes. I think you are a good woman,
Allison Bain. You have not knowingly done what is wrong."

"I did not wait to consider whether I was right or wrong, but I should
have done what I did even if I had known it to be wrong. And I would
not undo it now, even if you were to tell me I ought to do so. I could
not. I would rather die," said Allison, speaking low.

There was a long silence and Allison stood still with her eyes fixed on
the floor.

"Sit down, Allison, where I can see you. Put off your shawl and your
bonnet. You are too warm in this room."

Allison let her shawl slip from her shoulders and untied the strings of
her black bonnet.

"Take it off," said Mrs Esselmont, as Allison hesitated.

Her hair had grown long by this time and was gathered in a knot at the
back of her head, but little rings and wavy locks escaped here and
there--brown, with a touch of gold in them--and without the disguise of
the big, black bonnet, or of the full bordered mutch, a very different
Allison was revealed to Mrs Esselmont.

"A beautiful woman," she said to herself, "and with something in her
face better than beauty. She can have done nothing of which she need be
ashamed."

Aloud she said:

"Allison, si