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worked with me when we were girls both, and for that you courted
her and married her when I was her friend - '

He laid his furrowed forehead on his hand, with a low groan.

'And next, for that I know your heart, and am right sure and
certain that 'tis far too merciful to let her die, or even so much
as suffer, for want of aid. Thou knowest who said, "Let him who is
without sin among you cast the first stone at her!" There have
been plenty to do that. Thou art not the man to cast the last
stone, Stephen, when she is brought so low.'

'O Rachael, Rachael!'

'Thou hast been a cruel sufferer, Heaven reward thee!' she said, in
compassionate accents. 'I am thy poor friend, with all my heart
and mind.'

The wounds of which she had spoken, seemed to be about the neck of
the self-made outcast. She dressed them now, still without showing
her. She steeped a piece of linen in a basin, into which she
poured some liquid from a bottle, and laid it with a gentle hand
upon the sore. The three-legged table had been drawn close to the
bedside, and on it there were two bottles. This was one.

It was not so far off, but that Stephen, following her hands with
his eyes, could read what was printed on it in large letters. He
turned of a deadly hue, and a sudden horror seemed to fall upon
him.

'I will stay here, Stephen,' said Rachael, quietly resuming her
seat, 'till the bells go Three. 'Tis to be done again at three,
and then she may be left till morning.'

'But thy rest agen to-morrow's work, my dear.'

'I slept sound last night. I can wake many nights, when I am put
to it. 'Tis thou who art in need of rest - so white and tired.
Try to sleep in the chair there, while I watch. Thou hadst no
sleep last night, I can well believe. To-morrow's work is far
harder for thee than for me.'

He heard the thundering and surging out of doors, and it seemed to
him as if his late angry mood were going about trying to get at
him. She had cast it out; she would keep it out; he trusted to her
to defend him from himself.

'She don't know me, Stephen; she just drowsily mutters and stares.
I have spoken to her times and again, but she don't notice! 'Tis
as well so. When she comes to her right mind once more, I shall
have done what I can, and she never the wiser.'

'How long, Rachael, is 't looked for, that she'll be so?'

'Doctor said she would haply come to her mind to-morrow.'

His eyes fell again on the bottle, and a tremble passed over him,
causing him to shiver in every limb. She thought he was chilled
with the wet. 'No,' he said, 'it was not that. He had had a
fright.'

'A fright?'

'Ay, ay! coming in. When I were walking. When I were thinking.
When I - ' It seized him again; and he stood up, holding by the
mantel-shelf, as he pressed his dank cold hair down with a hand
that shook as if it were palsied.

'Stephen!'

She was coming to him, but he stretched out his arm to stop her.

'No! Don't, please; don't.

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