weeping. I never saw such weeping. One
thick strand of black hair had escaped, and hung with a spiral
twist down her back; never before had I noticed that she had gray
hairs.

As I came up upon the landing her voice rose again. "Oh that I should
have to tell you, Willie! Oh that I should have to tell you!" She
dropped her head again, and a fresh gust of tears swept all further
words away.

I said nothing, I was too astonished; but I drew nearer
to her, and waited. . . .

I never saw such weeping; the extraordinary wetness of her dripping
handkerchief abides with me to this day.

"That I should have lived to see this day!" she wailed. "I had
rather a thousand times she was struck dead at my feet."

I began to understand.

"Mrs. Stuart," I said, clearing my throat; "what has become of
Nettie?"

"That I should have lived to see this day!" she said by way of
reply.

I waited till her passion abated.

There came a lull. I forgot the weapon in my pocket. I said nothing,
and suddenly she stood erect before me, wiping her swollen eyes.
"Willie," she gulped, "she's gone!"

"Nettie?"

"Gone! . . . Run away. . . . Run away from her home. Oh, Willie,
Willie! The shame of it! The sin and shame of it!"

She flung herself upon my shoulder, and clung to me, and began
again to wish her daughter lying dead at our feet.

"There, there," said I, and all my being was a-tremble. "Where has
she gone?" I said as softly as I could.

But for the time she was preoccupied with her own sorrow, and I had
to hold her there, and comfort her with the blackness of finality
spreading over my soul.

"Where has she gone?" I asked for the fourth time.

"I don't know--we don't know. And oh, Willie, she went out yesterday
morning! I said to her, 'Nettie,' I said to her, 'you're mighty
fine for a morning call.' 'Fine clo's for a fine day,' she said,
and that was her last words to me!--Willie!--the child I suckled
at my breast!"

"Yes, yes. But where has she gone?" I said.

She went on with sobs, and now telling her story with a sort of
fragmentary hurry: "She went out bright and shining, out of this
house for ever. She was smiling, Willie--as if she was glad to be
going. ("Glad to be going," I echoed with soundless lips.) 'You're
mighty fine for the morning,' I says; 'mighty fine.' 'Let the girl
be pretty,' says her father, 'while she's young!' And somewhere
she'd got a parcel of her things hidden to pick up, and she was
going off-