ng out. "I--I--feel
strange," Alida gasped.

Tom caught the fainting woman in his arms and shouted, "Here, Bill,
Joe! You lazy loons, where are you?"

Three or four half wrecks of men shuffled to his assistance, and
together they bore the unconscious woman to the room which was used as
a sort of hospital. Some old crones gathered around with such
restoratives as they had at command. Gradually the stricken woman
revived, but as the whole miserable truth came back, she turned her
face to the wall with a sinking of heart akin to despair. At last, from
sheer exhaustion, feverish sleep ensued, from which she often started
with moans and low cries. One impression haunted her--she was falling,
ever falling into a dark, bottomless abyss.

Hours passed in the same partial stupor, filled with phantoms and
horrible dreams. Toward evening, she aroused herself mechanically to
take the broth Mrs. Watterly ordered her to swallow, then relapsed into
the same lethargy. Late in the night, she became conscious that someone
was kneeling at her bedside and fondling her. She started up with a
slight cry.

"Don't be afraid; it's only me, dear," said a quavering voice.

In the dim rays of a night lamp, Alida saw an old woman with gray hair
falling about her face and on her night robe. At first, in her
confused, feverish impressions, the poor waif was dumb with
superstitious awe, and trembled between joy and fear. Could her mother
have come to comfort her in her sore extremity?

"Put yer head on me ould withered breast," said the apparition, "an'
ye'll know a mither's heart niver changes. I've been a-lookin' for ye
and expectin' ye these long, weary years, They said ye wouldn't come
back--that I'd niver find ye ag'in; but I knowed I wud, and here ye are
in me arms, me darlint. Don't draw away from yer ould mither. Don't ye
be afeard or 'shamed loike. No matter what ye've done or where ye've
been or who ye've been with, a mither's heart welcomes ye back jist the
same as when yes were a babby an' slept on me breast. A mither's heart
ud quench the fires o' hell. I'd go inter the burnin' flames o' the
pit an' bear ye out in me arms. So niver fear. Now that I've found
ye, ye're safe. Ye'll not run away from me ag'in. I'll hould ye--I'll
hould ye back," and the poor creature clasped Alida with such
conclusive energy that she screamed from pain and terror.

"Ye shall not get away from me, ye shall not go back to evil ways.
Whist,