had risen in my mind. Even as a mere matter
of expediency I ho proceeding was doubtful in
the extreme. If I tried the experiment at home,
the landlord of the house would, sooner or later,
discover me, and would have his suspicions
aroused immediately. If I tried it away from
home, the same persons might see me, by the
commonest accident, with the disguise and
without it; and I should, in that way, be inviting the
notice and distrust which it was my most pressing
interest to avoid. In my own character I
had acted thus far—and in my own character I
was resolved to continue to the end.

The train left me at Welmingham, early in the
afternoon.

Is there any wilderness of sand in the deserts
of Arabia, is there any prospect of desolation
among the ruins of Palestine, which can rival
the repelling effect on the eye, and the depressing
influence on the mind, of an English country
town, in the first stage of its existence, and in
the transition state of its prosperity? I asked
myself that question, as I passed throngh the
clean desolation, the neat ugliness, the prim
torpor of the streets of Welmingham. And
the tradesmen who stared after me from their
lonely shops; the trees that drooped helpless
in their arid exile of unfinished crescents and
squares; the dead house-carcases that waited in
vain for the vivifying human element to animate
them with the breath of life; every creature
that I saw; every object that I passed—seemed
to answer with one accord. The deserts of
Arabia are innocent of our civilised desolation;
the ruins of Palestine are incapable of our
modern gloom!

I inquired my way to the quarter of the town
in which Mrs. Catherick lived; and on reaching
it found myself in a square of small houses, one
story high. There was a bare little plot of grass
in the middle, protected by a cheap wire fence.
An elderly nursemaid and two children were
standing in a corner of the enclosure, looking at
a lean goat tethered to the grass. Two foot
passengers were talking together on one side of
the pavement before the houses, and an idle
little boy was leading an idle little dog along by
a string, on the other. I heard the dull tinkling
of a piano at a distance, accompanied by the
intermittent knocking of a hammer nearer at
hand. These were all the sights and sounds of
life that encountered me when I entered the
square.

I walked at once to the door of Number
Thirteen—the number of Mrs. Catherick's house
—and knocked, without waiting to consider
beforehand how I might best present myself
when I got in. The first necessity was to see
Mrs. Catherick. I could then judge, from my
own observation, of the safest and easiest manner
of approaching the object of my visit.

The door was opened by a melancholy, middle-
aged woman servant. I gave her my card, and
asked if I could see Mrs. Catherick. The card
was taken into the front parlour; and the
servant returned with a message requesting me to
mention what my business was.

"Say, if you please, that my business relates
to Mrs. Catherick's daughter," I replied. This
was the best pretext I could think of, on the
spur of the moment, to account for my visit.

The servant again retired to the parlour;
again returned; and, this time, begged me, with
a look of gloomy amazement, to walk in.

I entered a little room, with a flaring paper,
of the largest pattern, on the walls. Chairs,
tables, cheffonier, and sofa, all gleamed with the
glutinous brightness of cheap upholstery. On
the largest table, in the middle of the room,
stood a smart Bible, placed exactly in the
centre, on a red and yellow woollen mat; and
at the side of the table nearest to the window,
with a little knitting-basket on her lap, and a
wheezing, blear-eyed old spaniel crouched at her
feet, there sat an elderly woman, wearing a black
net cap and a black silk gown, and having slate-
coloured mittens on her hands. Her iron-grey
hair hung in heavy bands on either side of her
face; her dark eyes looked straight forward, with
a hard, defiant, implacable stare. She had full,
square cheeks; a long, firm chin; and thick,
sensual, colourless lips. Her figure was stout
and sturdy, and her manner aggressively self-
possessed. This was Mrs. Catherick.

"You have come to speak to me about my
daughter," she said, before I could utter a word
on my side. "Be so good as to mention what
you have to say."

The tone of her voice was as hard, as defiant,
as implacable as the expression of her eyes. She
pointed to a chair, and looked me all over
attentively, from head to foot, as I sat down in it.
I saw that my only chance with this woman
was to speak to her in her own tone, and to meet
her, at the outset of our interview, on her own
ground.

"You are aware," I said, "that your daughter
has been lost?"

"I am perfectly aware of it."

"Have you felt any apprehension that the
misfortune of her loss might be followed by the
misfortune of her death?"

"Yes. Have you come here to tell me she
is dead?"

"I have."

"Why?"

She put that extraordinary question without
the slightest change in her voice, her face, or
her manner. She could not have appeared more
perfectly unconcerned if I had told her of the
death of the goat in the enclosure outside.

"Why?" I repeated. "Do you ask why
I come here to tell you of your daughter's
death?"

"Yes. What interest have you in me, or in
her? How do you come to know anything
about my daughter?"

"In this way. I met her on the night when
she escaped from the Asylum; and I assisted
her in reaching a place of safety."

"You did very wrong."

"I am sorry to hear her mother say so."

"Her mother does say so. How do you know
she is dead?"