ed her head.

'I see the shadow of him in her face! It's a red house standing by
itself. Before the door there is a small green porch.'

Again the old woman nodded.

'In which I sat to-day! Give me back the money.'

'Alice! Deary!'

'Give me back the money, or you'll be hurt.'

She forced it from the old woman's hand as she spoke, and utterly
indifferent to her complainings and entreaties, threw on the garments
she had taken off, and hurried out, with headlong speed.

The mother followed, limping after her as she could, and expostulating
with no more effect upon her than upon the wind and rain and darkness
that encompassed them. Obdurate and fierce in her own purpose, and
indifferent to all besides, the daughter defied the weather and the
distance, as if she had known no travel or fatigue, and made for the
house where she had been relieved. After some quarter of an hour's
walking, the old woman, spent and out of breath, ventured to hold by
her skirts; but she ventured no more, and they travelled on in silence
through the wet and gloom. If the mother now and then uttered a word of
complaint, she stifled it lest her daughter should break away from her
and leave her behind; and the daughter was dumb.

It was within an hour or so of midnight, when they left the regular
streets behind them, and entered on the deeper gloom of that neutral
ground where the house was situated. The town lay in the distance, lurid
and lowering; the bleak wind howled over the open space; all around was
black, wild, desolate.

'This is a fit place for me!' said the daughter, stopping to look back.
'I thought so, when I was here before, to-day.'

'Alice, my deary,' cried the mother, pulling her gently by the skirt.
'Alice!'

'What now, mother?'

'Don't give the money back, my darling; please don't. We can't afford
it. We want supper, deary. Money is money, whoever gives it. Say what
you will, but keep the money.'

'See there!' was all the daughter's answer. 'That is the house I mean.
Is that it?'

The old woman nodded in the affirmative; and a few more paces brought
them to the threshold. There was the light of fire and candle in the
room where Alice had sat to dry her clothes; and on her knocking at the
door, John Carker appeared from that room.

He was surprised to see such visitors at such an hour, and asked Alice
what she wanted.

'I want your sister,' she said. 'The woman who gave me money to-day.'

At the sound of her ra