“Clean gone!  Absconded from his lodgings, and left no traces behind him.  But, as to the poor woman, the policeman reported that she had been left in terrible distress, with the child extremely ill, and not a penny, not a thing to eat in the house.  He came back to ask Mr. Grey what was to be done; and as the suspicion of diphtheria made every one inclined to fight shy of the house, I thought I had better go down and see what was to be done.  I knocked a good while in vain; but at last she looked out of window, and I told her I only wanted to know what could be done for her child, and would send a doctor.  Then she told me how to open the door.  Poor thing!  I found her the picture of desolation, in the midst of the dreary kitchen, with the child gasping on her lap; all the pretence of widowhood gone, and her hair hanging loose about her face, which was quite white with hunger, and her great eyes looked wild, like the glare of a wild beast’s in a den.  I spoke to her by her own name, and she started and trembled, and said, ‘Did Miss Alison tell you?’ I said, ‘Yes,’ and explained who I was, and she caught me up half way:  ’O yes, yes, my lady’s nephew, that was engaged to Miss Ermine!’ And she looked me full and searchingly in the face, Ermine, when I answered ‘Yes.’  Then she almost sobbed, ‘And you are true to her;’ and put her hands over her face in an agony.  It was a very strange examination on one’s constancy, and I put an end to it by asking if she had any friends at home that I could write to for her; but she cast that notion from her fiercely, and said she had no friend, no one.  He had left her to her fate, because the child was too ill to be moved.  And indeed the poor child was in such a state that there was no thinking of anything else, and I went at once to find a doctor and a nurse.”

“Diphtheria again?”

“Yes; and she, poor thing, was in no state to give it the resolute care that is the only chance.  Doctors could be easily found, but I was at my wit’s end for a nurse, till I remembered that Mr. Mitchell had told me of a Sisterhood that have a Home at St. Norbert’s, with a nursing establishment attached to it.  So, in despair, I went there, and begged to see the Superior, and a most kind and sensible lady I found her, ready to do anything helpful.  She lent me a nice little Sister, rather young, I thought; but who turned out thoroughly efficient, nearly as good as a doctor.  Still, whether the child lives is very doubtful, though the mother was full of hope when I went in last.  She insisted that I had saved it, when both she and it had been deserted by Maddox, for whom she had given up everything.”

“Then she owned that he was Maddox?”

“She called him so, without my even putting the question to her.  She had played his game long enough; and now his desertion has evidently put an end to all her regard for him.  It was confusedly and shortly told; the child was in a state that prevented attention being given to anything else; but she knows that she had been made a tool of to ruin her master and you, and the sight of you, Ailie, had evidently stirred up much old affection, and remembrance of better days.”