of her features, now that I
had a good opportunity of observing them. "I have brought you money. Let
them dig up your turnips if they will."

She did not seem to perceive me. Her eyes were wild with dismay and her
lips trembling with a passion far beyond my power to comfort.

"Lizzie!" she cried. "Lizzie! She will come back and find no home. Oh,
my poor girl! My poor, poor girl!"

It was pitiable. I could not doubt her anguish or her sincerity. The
delirium of a broken heart cannot be simulated. And this heart was not
controlled by reason; that was equally apparent. Immediately my heart,
which goes out slowly, but none the less truly on that account, was
touched by something more than the surface sympathy of the moment. She
may have stolen, she may have done worse, she may even have been at the
bottom of the horrible crimes which have given its name to the lane we
were in, but her acts, if acts they were, were the result of a clouded
mind fixed forever upon the fancied needs of another, and not the
expression of personal turpitude or even of personal longing or avarice.
Therefore I could pity her, and I did.

Making another appeal, I pressed the coin hard into one of her hands
till the contact effected what my words had been unable to do, and she
finally looked down and saw what she was clutching. Then indeed her
aspect changed, and in a few minutes of slowly growing comprehension she
became so quiet and absorbed that she forgot to look at the men and even
forgot me, who was probably nothing more than a flitting shadow to her.

"A silk gown," she murmured. "It will buy Lizzie a silk gown. Oh! where
did it come from, the good, good gold, the beautiful gold; such a little
piece, yet enough to make her look fine, my Lizzie, my pretty, pretty
Lizzie?"

No numbers this time. The gift was too overpowering for her even to
remember that it must be hidden away.

I walked away while her delight was still voluble. Somehow it eased my
mind to have done her this little act of kindness, and I think it eased
the minds of the men too. At all events, every hat was off when I
repassed them on my way back to the Knollys gateway.

I had left both the girls there, but I found only one awaiting me.
Lucetta had gone in, and so had Hannah. On what errand I was soon to
know.

"What do you suppose that detective wants of Lucetta now?" asked Loreen
as I took my station again at her side. "While you were talking to
Mother Jane he steppe