“I don’t know,” said the Deputy, with deliberation, “as I ought to let you go. I’m a honest man as gets my living by the sweat of my brow, and I may fall into trouble by letting you go. I’ve fell into trouble afore now, by George, and I know what it is, and it’s made me careful. You might be took with your deadness again, half a mile off — or half of half a quarter, for the matter of that — and then it would be asked, Why did that there honest Deputy Lock, let her go, instead of putting her safe with the Parish? That’s what a man of his character ought to have done, it would be argueyfied,” said the Deputy Lock, cunningly harping on the strong string of her terror; “he ought to have handed her over safe to the Parish. That was to be expected of a man of his merits.”

As he stood in the doorway, the poor old careworn wayworn woman burst into tears, and clasped her hands, as if in a very agony she prayed to him.

“As I’ve told you, Master, I’ve the best of friends. This letter will show how true I spoke, and they will be thankful for me.”

The Deputy Lock opened the letter with a grave face, which underwent no change as he eyed its contents. But it might have done, if he could have read them.

“What amount of small change, Missis,” he said, with an abstracted air, after a little meditation, “might you call a morsel of money?”

Hurriedly emptying her pocket, old Betty laid down on the table, a shilling, and two sixpenny pieces, and a few pence.

“If I was to let you go instead of handing you over safe to the Parish,” said the Deputy, counting the money with his eyes, “might it be your own free wish to leave that there behind you?”

“Take it, Master, take it, and welcome and thankful!”

“I’m a man,” said the Deputy, giving her back the letter, and pocketing the coins, one by one, “as earns his living by the sweat of his brow;” here he drew his sleeve across his forehead, as if this particular portion of his humble gains were the result of sheer hard labour and virtuous industry; “and I won’t stand in your way. Go where you like.”

She was gone out of the Lock-house as soon as he gave her this permission, and her tottering steps were on the road again. But, afraid to go back and afraid to go forward; seeing what she fled from, in the sky-glare of the lights of the little town before her, and leaving a confused horror of it everywhere behind her, as if she had escaped it in every stone of every market-place; she struck off by side ways, among which she got bewildered and lost. That night she took refuge from the Samaritan in his latest accredited form; under a farmer’s rick; and if — worth thinking of, perhaps, my fellow-Christians — the Samaritan had in the lonely night, “passed by on the other side,” she would have most devoutly thanked High Heaven for her escape from him.

The morning found her afoot again, but fast declining as to the clearness of her thoughts, though not as to the steadiness of her purpose. Comprehending that her strength was quitting her, and that the struggle of her life was almost ended, she could neither reason out the means of getting back to her protectors, nor even form the idea. The overmastering dread, and the proud stubborn resolution it engendered in her to die undegraded, were the two distinct impressions left in her failing mind. Supported only by a sense that she was bent on conquering in her life-long fight, she went on.

The time was come, now, when the wants of this little life were passing away from her. She could not have swallowed food, though a table had been spread for her in the next field. The day was cold and wet, but she scarcely knew it. She crept on, poor soul, like a criminal afraid of being taken, and felt little beyond the terror of falling down while it was yet daylight, and being found alive. She had no fear that she would live through another night.