at least, to remaining with one who loved and sorrowed for the same
human being that she did.

But no. Mrs. Wilson was inflexible.

"I've, maybe, been a bit hard on you, Mary, I'll own that. But I
cannot abide you yet with me. I cannot but remember it's your
giddiness as has wrought this woe. I'll stay with Alice, and
perhaps Mrs. Davenport may come help a bit. I cannot put up with
you about me. Good-night. To-morrow I may look on you different,
maybe. Good-night."

And Mary turned out of the house, which had been HIS home, where HE
was loved, and mourned for, into the busy, desolate, crowded street,
where they were crying halfpenny broadsides, giving an account of
the bloody murder, the coroner's inquest, and a raw-head-and-bloody-
bones picture of the suspected murderer, James Wilson.

But Mary heard not; she heeded not. She staggered on like one in a
dream. With hung head and tottering steps, she instinctively chose
the shortest cut to that home which was to her, in her present state
of mind, only the hiding-place of four walls, where she might vent
her agony, unseen and unnoticed by the keen unkind world without,
but where no welcome, no love, no sympathising tears awaited her.

As she neared that home, within two minutes' walk of it, her
impetuous course was arrested by a light touch on her arm, and
turning hastily she saw a little Italian boy with his humble
show-box, a white mouse, or some such thing. The setting sun cast
its red glow on his face, otherwise the olive complexion would have