“Yes, I know.  Poor Miriam! poor mother!”

Mollie finished her meal and went at once upstairs.  The chamber of death looked ghastly enough, draped with white sheets, which hid the smoky, blotched walls; the stove had been removed, the floor scrubbed, the window washed and flung open, and on the table stood two large and beautiful bouquets that scented the little room with sweetest odors of rose and mignonette.

On the bed, snowily draped in a white shroud, lay Miriam, her hands folded across her bosom, a linen cloth covering the dead face.  By the bed a watcher sat—­a decently dressed woman, who rose with a sort of questioning courtesy upon the entrance of the young lady.

“This is Mrs. Harmen, Miss Dane,” said Mrs. Slimmens.  “She’s the person that fixed the shroud and helped tidy up.  She’s to take spells with you and me watching until the funeral comes off.”

“Very well,” said Mollie, quietly.  “Perhaps she had better go down with you for the present.  I will remain here for the rest of the day.”

The two women quitted the apartment, and Mollie was left alone.  She removed the cloth and gazed sadly on the rigid face.

“Poor soul!” she thought, bitterly, “hers was a hard, hard life!  Oh, Carl Walraven! if you could look upon your work, surely even you would feel remorse.”

The entrance of Hugh Ingelow aroused her.  She turned to him her pale, sweet face and earnest blue eyes.

“I want to thank you so much, Mr. Ingelow, and I can not.  You are very, very, very good.”

He took the hand she held out and kissed it.

“One word from you would repay me for ten times as much.  May I share your watch for a couple of hours?”

“For as long as you will.  I want to tell you the story she told me on her death-bed.  You have been so good to me—­no brother could have been more—­that I can have no secrets from you.  Besides, you must understand why it is I will return to Mr. Walraven’s no more.”

“No more?” he echoed in surprise.

“Never again.  I never want to see him again in this world.  I will tell you.  I know the miserable secret is as safe with you as in my own breast.”

If Mollie had loved Hugh Ingelow less dearly and devotedly than she did, it is doubtful if she would have revealed the dark, sad history Miriam had unfolded.  But he had her heart, and must have every secret in it; so she sat and told him, simply and sadly, all her father’s and mother’s wrongs.  Mr. Ingelow listened in horrified amaze.

“So now, you see, my friend,” she concluded, “that I can never cross Carl Walraven’s threshold more.”

“Of course not,” cried Mr. Ingelow, impetuously.  “Good heavens! what a villain that man has been!  They ought to hang, draw, and quarter him.  The infliction of such a wife as Madame Blanche has been is but righteous retribution.  You should expose him, Mollie.”

“And myself?  No, no, Mr. Ingelow.  I leave him in higher hands.  The mill of the gods grinds slow, but it grinds sure.  His turn will come, be certain of that, sooner or later.  All I will do is never to look upon his guilty face again.”