ning,
listening, like a hunted hare; her whole faculties concentrated in the
one sense of hearing; her eyes wandering vacantly over the black saws of
rock, and glistening oar-weed beds, and bright phosphoric sea. Thank
Heaven, there was not a ripple to break the silence. Ah, what was that
sound within? She pressed her ear against the rock, to hear more surely.
A rumbling as of stones rolled down. And then,--was it a fancy, or were
her powers of hearing, intensified by excitement, actually equal to
discern the chink of coin? Who knows? but in another moment she had
glided in, silently, swiftly, holding her very breath; and saw her
mother kneeling on the ground, the lanthorn by her side, and in her hand
the long-lost belt.

She did not speak, she did not move. She always knew, in her heart of
hearts, that so it was: but when the sin took bodily shape, and was
there before her very eyes, it was too dreadful to speak of, to act upon
yet. And amid the most torturing horror and disgust of that great sin,
rose up in her the divinest love for the sinner; she felt--strange
paradox--that she had never loved her mother as she did at that moment.
"Oh, that it had been I who had done it, and not she!" And her mother's
sin was to her her own sin, her mother's shame her shame, till all sense
of her mother's guilt vanished in the light of her divine love. "Oh,
that I could take her up tenderly, tell her that all is forgiven and
forgotten by man and God!--serve her as I have never served her yet!--
nurse her to sleep on my bosom, and then go forth and bear her
punishment, even if need be on the gallows-tree!" And there she stood,
in a silent agony of tender pity, drinking her portion of the cup of Him
who bore the sins of all the world.

Silently she stood; and silently she turned to go, to go home and pray
for guidance in that dark labyrinth of confused duties. Her mother heard
the rustle; looked up; and sprang to her feet with a scream, dropping
gold pieces on the ground.

Her first impulse was wild terror. She was discovered; by whom, she knew
not. She clasped her evil treasure to her bosom, and thrusting Grace
against the rock, fled wildly out.

"Mother! Mother!" shrieked Grace, rushing after her. The shawl fell from
her shoulders. Her mother looked back, and saw the white figure.

"God's angel! God's angel, come to destroy me! as he came to Balaam!"
and in the madness of her guilty fancy she saw in Grace's hand the fiery
swor