with which Janet was
regarding her. "Ha, ha, ha!" she screamed, "it's to be a clean sweep o'
the Gourlays! Ha, ha, ha! it's to be a clean sweep o' the Gourlays!"

There is nothing uglier in life than a woman's cruel laugh; but Mrs.
Gourlay's laugh was more than cruel, it was demoniac--the skirl of a
human being carried by misery beyond the confines of humanity. Janet
stared at her in speechless fear.

"Mother," she whispered at last, "what are we to do?"

"There's twa-thirds of the poison left," said Mrs. Gourlay.

"Mother!" cried Janet.

"Gourlay's dochter may gang on the parish if she likes, but his wife
never will. _You_ may hoast yourself to death in a garret in the
poorhouse, but _I_'ll follow my boy."

The sudden picture of her own lonely death as a pauper among strangers,
when her mother and brother should be gone, was so appalling to Janet
that to die with her mother seemed pleasanter. She could not bear to be
left alone.

"Mother," she cried in a frenzy, "I'll keep ye company!"

"Let us read a chapter," said Mrs. Gourlay.

She took down the big Bible, and "the thirteent' chapter o' First
Corinthians," she announced in a loud voice, as if giving it out from
the pulpit, "the thirteent'--o' the First Corinthians:"--

"_'Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not
charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal._

"_'And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries,
and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove
mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.'_"

Mrs. Gourlay's manner had changed: she was in the high exaltation of
madness. Callous she still appeared, so possessed by her general doom
that she had no sense of its particular woes. But she was listless no
more. Willing her death, she seemed to borrow its greatness and become
one with the law that punished her. Arrogating the Almighty's function
to expedite her doom, she was the equal of the Most High. It was her
feebleness that made her great. Because in her feebleness she yielded
entirely to the fate that swept her on, she was imbued with its demoniac
power.

"_'Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity
vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,_

"_'Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily
provoked, thinketh no evil;_

"_'Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;_

"_'Beareth all things, believ