ame was Grice till you told me."

His look of suspicion began to change to a look of amazement as he heard
this. He hurriedly gathered up the Bracelet and the lock of hair, and
put them into his pocket again.

"Let's hear first how you met with her," he said. "I'll have a word or
two about the other matter afterwards."

Mrs. Peckover sat down near him, and began to relate the mournful story
which she had told to Valentine, and Doctor and Mrs. Joyce, now many
years ago, in the Rectory dining-room. But on this occasion she was
not allowed to go through her narrative uninterruptedly. While she was
speaking the few simple words which told how she had sat down by the
road-side, and suckled the half-starved infant of the forsaken and dying
Mary Grice, Mat suddenly reached out his heavy, trembling hand, and took
fast hold of hers. He griped it with such force that, stout-hearted and
hardy as she was, she cried out in alarm and pain, "Oh, don't! you hurt
me--you hurt me!"

He dropped her hand directly, and turned his face away from her; his
breath quickening painfully, his fingers fastening on the side of his
chair, as if some great pang of oppression were trying him to the quick.
She rose and asked anxiously what ailed him; but, even as the words
passed her lips, he mastered himself with that iron resolution of his
which few trials could bend, and none break, and motioned to her to sit
down again.

"Don't mind me," he said; "I'm old and tough-hearted with being battered
about in the world, and I can't give myself vent nohow with talking or
crying like the rest of you. Never mind; it's all over now. Go on."

She complied, a little nervously at first; but he did not interrupt her
again. He listened while she proceeded, looking straight at her; not
speaking or moving--except when he winced once or twice, as a man winces
under unexpected pain, while Mary's death-bed words were repeated to
him. Having reached this stage of her narrative, Mrs. Peckover added
little more; only saying, in conclusion: "I took care of the poor soul's
child, as I said I would; and did my best to behave like a mother to
her, till she got to be ten year old; then I give her up--because it was
for her own good--to Mr. Blyth."

He did not seem to notice the close of the narrative. The image of the
forsaken girl, sitting alone by the roadside, with her child's
natural sustenance dried up within her--travel-worn, friendless, and
desperate--was still up