“A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther.  Don’t shut the door:- oh, don’t, for God’s sake!”

“I must; the rain is driving in —­ "

“Tell the young ladies.  Let me see them- "

“Indeed, I will not.  You are not what you ought to be, or you wouldn’t make such a noise.  Move off.”

“But I must die if I am turned away.”

“Not you.  I’m fear’d you have some ill plans agate, that bring you about folk’s houses at this time o’ night.  If you’ve any followers —­ housebreakers or such like —­ anywhere near, you may tell them we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs, and guns.”  Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to and bolted it within.

This was the climax.  A pang of exquisite suffering —­ a throe of true despair —­ rent and heaved my heart.  Worn out, indeed, I was; not another step could I stir.  I sank on the wet doorstep:  I groaned —­ I wrung my hands —­ I wept in utter anguish.  Oh, this spectre of death!  Oh, this last hour, approaching in such horror!  Alas, this isolation —­ this banishment from my kind!  Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of fortitude was gone —­ at least for a moment; but the last I soon endeavoured to regain.

“I can but die,” I said, “and I believe in God.  Let me try to wait His will in silence.”

These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all my misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain there —­ dumb and still.

“All men must die,” said a voice quite close at hand; “but all are not condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would be if you perished here of want.”

“Who or what speaks?” I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound, and incapable now of deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid.  A form was near —­ what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled vision prevented me from distinguishing.  With a loud long knock, the new-comer appealed to the door.

“Is it you, Mr. St. John?” cried Hannah.

“Yes —­ yes; open quickly.”

“Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is!  Come in —­ your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe there are bad folks about.  There has been a beggar-woman —­ I declare she is not gone yet! —­ laid down there.  Get up! for shame!  Move off, I say!”

“Hush, Hannah!  I have a word to say to the woman.  You have done your duty in excluding, now let me do mine in admitting her.  I was near, and listened to both you and her.  I think this is a peculiar case —­ I must at least examine into it.  Young woman, rise, and pass before me into the house.”

With difficulty I obeyed him.  Presently I stood within that clean, bright kitchen —­ on the very hearth —­ trembling, sickening; conscious of an aspect in the last degree ghastly, wild, and weather-beaten.  The two ladies, their brother, Mr. St. John, the old servant, were all gazing at me.