rom him in my day, I can tell you. So I've
come for the boy. I'm going to have him back; and when I've got him I've
no doubt but what I can make Wyvis do what I choose. I hear he's fond of
the boy."

"But what--what--do you want him to do?" said Janetta, startled out of
her reserve. "Do you want--_money_ from him?"

Mrs. Wyvis Brand laughed hoarsely. Janetta noticed that her breath was
very short, and that she leaned against the gate-post for support.

"No, not precisely," she said. "I want more than that. I see that he's
got a nice, comfortable, respectable house; and I'm tired of wandering.
I'm ill, too, I believe. I want a place in which to be quiet and rest,
or die, as it may turn out. I mean Wyvis to take me back."

She opened the gate as she spoke, and tried to pass Janetta. But the
girl stood in her way.

"Take you back after you have left him and ill-treated him and deceived
him, you wicked woman!" she broke out, in her old impetuous way. And for
answer, Mrs. Wyvis Brand raised her hand and struck her sharply across
the face.

A shrill, childish cry rang out upon the air. Janetta stood mute and
trembling, unable for the moment to move or speak, as little Julian
suddenly flung himself into her arms and tried to drag her towards the
house.

"Oh, come away, come away, dear Janetta!" he cried. "It's mamma, and
she'll take me back to Paris, I know she will! I won't go away from you,
I won't, I won't!" His mother sprung towards him, as if to tear him from
Janetta's arm, and then her strength seemed suddenly to pass from her.
She stopped, turned ghastly white, and then as suddenly very red. Then
she flung up her arms with a gasping, gurgling cry, and, to Janetta's
horror, she saw a crimson tide break from her quivering lips. She was
just in time to catch her in her arms before she sank senseless to the
ground.

CHAPTER XXXV.

JULIET.

There was no help for it. Into Wyvis Brand's house Wyvis Brand's wife
must go. Old Mrs. Brand came feebly into the garden, and identified the
woman as the mother of Julian, and the wife of her eldest son. She could
not be allowed to die at their door. She could not be taken to any other
dwelling. There were laborers' cottages only in the immediate vicinity.
She must be brought to the Red House and nursed by Janetta and Mrs.
Brand. A woman with a broken blood-vessel, how unworthy soever she might
be, could not be sent to the Beaminster Hospital three miles away.
Commo