knees, sobbing out brokenly, "O God! O God! have pity, have pity, have
pity!"--and every man took off his hat. And still the voice came nearer,
singing so brightly the refrain,

'"Will ye no' come back again?'

'It became unbearable. "Old Ricketts" sprang suddenly to his feet, and,
gripping me by the arm, said piteously, "Oh, go to her! for Heaven's
sake, go to her!" I next remember standing in her path and seeing her
holding out her hands full of red lilies, crying out, "Are they not
lovely? Lewis is so fond of them!" With the promise of much finer ones I
turned her down a path toward the river, talking I know not what folly,
till her great eyes grew grave, then anxious, and my tongue stammered
and became silent. Then, laying her hand upon my arm, she said with
gentle sweetness, "Tell me your trouble, Mr. Craig," and I knew my agony
had come, and I burst out, "Oh, if it were only mine!" She turned quite
white, and with her deep eyes--you've noticed her eyes--drawing the
truth out of mine, she said, "Is it mine, Mr. Craig, and my baby's?"
I waited, thinking with what words to begin. She put one hand to her
heart, and with the other caught a little poplar-tree that shivered
under her grasp, and said with white lips, but even more gently, "Tell
me." I wondered at my voice being so steady as I said, "Mrs. Mavor, God
will help you and your baby. There has been an accident--and it is all
over."

'She was a miner's wife, and there was no need for more. I could see
the pattern of the sunlight falling through the trees upon the grass. I
could hear the murmur of the river, and the cry of the cat-bird in the
bushes, but we seemed to be in a strange and unreal world. Suddenly she
stretched out her hands to me, and with a little moan said, "Take me to