said, “Upstairs,” in a hoarse whisper.  Up they went into her own room.  She drew him in, and bolted the door; and then, sitting down, she placed him (she had never let go of him) before her, holding him with her hands on each of his shoulders, and gazing into his face with a woeful look of the agony that could not find vent in words.  At last she tried to speak:  she tried with strong bodily effort, almost amounting to convulsion.  But the words would not come; it was not till she saw the absolute terror depicted on his face that she found utterance; and then the sight of that terror changed the words from what she meant them to have been.  She drew him to her, and laid her head upon his shoulder; hiding her face even there.

“My poor, poor boy! my poor, poor darling!  Oh! would that I had died—­I had died, in my innocent girlhood!”

“Mother! mother!” sobbed Leonard.  “What is the matter?  Why do you look so wild and ill?  Why do you call me your ‘poor boy’?  Are we not going to Scaurside Hill?  I don’t much mind it, mother; only please don’t gasp and quiver so.  Dearest mother, are you ill?  Let me call Aunt Faith!”

Ruth lifted herself up, and put away the hair that had fallen over and was blinding her eyes.  She looked at him with intense wistfulness.

“Kiss me, Leonard!” said she—­“kiss me, my darling, once more in the old way!” Leonard threw himself into her arms and hugged her with all his force, and their lips clung together as in the kiss given to the dying.

“Leonard!” said she at length, holding him away from her, and nerving herself up to tell him all by one spasmodic effort—­“listen to me.”  The boy stood breathless and still, gazing at her.  On her impetuous transit from Mr. Bradshaw’s to the Chapel-house her wild, desperate thought had been that she would call herself by every violent, coarse name which the world might give her—­that Leonard should hear those words applied to his mother first from her own lips; but the influence of his presence—­for he was a holy and sacred creature in her eyes, and this point remained steadfast, though all the rest were upheaved—­subdued her; and now it seemed as if she could not find words fine enough, and pure enough, to convey the truth that he must learn, and should learn from no tongue but hers.

“Leonard! when I was very young I did very wrong.  I think God, who knows all, will judge me more tenderly than men—­but I did wrong in a way which you cannot understand yet” (she saw the red flush come into his cheek, and it stung her as the first token of that shame which was to be his portion through life)—­“in a way people never forget, never forgive.  You will hear me called the hardest names that ever can be thrown at women—­I have been to-day; and, my child, you must bear it patiently, because they will be partly true.  Never get confused, by your love for me, into thinking that what I did was right.—­Where was I?” said she, suddenly faltering, and forgetting all she had said and all she had got to say; and then, seeing Leonard’s face of wonder, and burning shame and indignation, she went on more rapidly, as fearing lest her strength should fail before she had ended.