whist! Be aisy and let me plead wid ye. Think how many long,
weary years I've looked for ye and waited for ye. Niver have I slept
night or day in me watchin'. Ye may be so stained an' lost an' ruined
that the whole wourld will scorn ye, yet not yer mither, not yer ould
mither. Oh, Nora, Nora, why did ye rin away from me? Wasn't I koind?
No, no; ye cannot lave me ag'in," and she threw herself on Alida, whose
disordered mind was tortured by what she heard. Whether or not it was a
more terrible dream than had yet oppressed her, she scarcely knew, but
in the excess of her nervous horror she sent out a cry that echoed in
every part of the large building. Two old women rushed in and dragged
Alida's persecutor screaming away.

"That's allus the way o' it," she shrieked. "As soon as I find me Nora
they snatches me and carries me off, and I have to begin me watchin'
and waitin' and lookin' ag'in."

Alida continued sobbing and trembling violently. One of the awakened
patients sought to assure her by saying, "Don't mind it so, miss. It's
only old crazy Kate. Her daughter ran away from her years and years
ago--how many no one knows--and when a young woman's brought here she
thinks it's her lost Nora. They oughtn't 'a' let her get out, knowin'
you was here."

For several days Alida's reason wavered. The nervous shock of her sad
experiences had been so great that it did not seem at all improbable
that she, like the insane mother, might be haunted for the rest of her
life by an overwhelming impression of something lost. In her morbid,
shaken mind she confounded the wrong she had received with guilt on her
own part. Eventually, she grew calmer and more sensible. Although her
conscience acquitted her of intentional evil, nothing could remove the
deep-rooted conviction that she was shamed beyond hope of remedy. For
a time she was unable to rally from nervous prostration; meanwhile, her
mind was preternaturally active, presenting every detail of the past
until she was often ready to cry aloud in her despair.

Tom Watterly took an unusual interest in her case and exhorted the
visiting physician to do his best for her. She finally began to
improve, and with the first return of strength sought to do something
with her feeble hands. The bread of charity was not sweet.

Although the place in which she lodged was clean, and the coarse,
unvarying fare abundant, she shrank shuddering, with each day's clearer
consciousness,