this David Holm's wife? exclaimed the Salvationist Captain. "I have certainly seen her before, though I can't identify her. What can have happened to her?"
"It's clear enough what has occurred," replied the Sister sharply, as if seized by an impatient rage; "it's her husband who'is torturing the life out of her."
The Salvationist scrutinised the woman again and again. Her eyes were bulging out of their sockets and their pupils were staring fixedly before her; two of her fingers were incessantly writhing about each other, and time after time a slight shiver ran over her lips.
"What has he done to her?" she wondered.
"I don't know. She could not answer my questions, but sat shivering like this when I came. The children were out, and there was no one to ask. O Lord God, that this should happen on this very day. How can I manage to look after her now, when I want to think of nobody but Sister Edith ? "
"The fellow has been beating her, I suppose."
There must have been something far worse. I've seen plenty of women who have been beaten, but they were, never like this. No, it has been something a great deal worse," the Sister exclaimed, with increasing horror. " We saw, you know, from Sister Edith's face that something terrible had happened."
"Yes," cried the Salvationist Captain ; " now we can understand. what it was that worried her. Thank and praise God that Sister Edith did see, so that you reached there in time, Sister Mary. Thank the Lord and praise Him ! It is certainly His purpose that we should succeed in saving the poor woman's reason."
"But what am I to-do with her ? She follows me when I take her hand, but does not understand a word I say. Her soul has taken flight; how can we recapture it ? I've no influence over her but perhaps you will succeed better, Captain Andersson ?"
The heavily built Salvationist took the poor woman's hand, and spoke to her in a. gentle, but-at the same time stern, voice. Not a glimmer'of understanding, however, was discernible on the woman's countenance.
In the middle of these useless efforts Edith's mother put her head in at the door.
"Edith is getting restless," she warned them; " you had better'come in."
Both the Salvationists hurried into the little bedroom. Edith was tossing backwards and forwards on her bed; but her restlessness seemed rather to have been due to something weighing on. her mind than to actual physical pain. She became quiet directly she saw her two friends in thieir usual places, and shut her eyes.
The Salvationist gave the Sister a sign to remain by the patient, but she herself got up, intending to steal noiselessly out again. At that moment the door opened and David Holm's wife walked in.
She went up to the bed, and stood there with staring, dazed eyes, shivering as before, and twitching her bony fingers till the joints cracked.
It was long before anyone noticed any signs that she was aware of what she saw, but the steeliness of her glance gradually relaxed; she leaned forward, and drew nearer and nearer to the face of the dying girl.
Something defiant and awful passed over the wretched woman ; her fingers clasped and unclasped. The two Salvationists jumped up, in fear that she was about to fling herself on Edith.
The little Slum-Sister opened her eyes, gazed at the dreadful, half-insane creature before her, sat up in bed, and flung her arms around her. She drew the woman towards her with all the strength which she could muster, and kissed her forehead, cheeks, and lips, whispering meanwhile:
"Ah, poor Mrs. Holm ! Poor Mrs. Holm ! "
At first the broken victim of misfortune seemed inclined to draw back, but all at once a shiver passed through her body; she burst into sobs, and fell on her knees beside the bed, her head pressed against Edith's cheek.
"She is weeping, Sister Mary, she is weeping," whispered the Salvationist; " she will not go mad now."
The Sister's hand clutched tightly her teardrenched handkerchief as she mopped her eyes in a desperate effort to steady her voice. " Captain, it's Sister Edith alone who can work such marvels. Oh ! what will become of us when she is gone ? "
The next moment they caught an imploring glance from Edith's mother.
"Yes, certainly," said the Salvationist, with quick understanding; " it would never do for the husband to come and find her here. No, Sister Mary, you must remain with your friend," she went on, when the Sister was about to leave the room. " I will look after this other one."
CHAPTER II
THE BIRTH OF A NEW YEAR
On this same New Year's Eve, but so late that it : was night and quite dark, three fellows were sitting drinking ale and Schnapps in the little shrubbery surrounding the city church. They had thrown themselves down on "a withered grass-plot, beneath some lime-trees, the black branches of which gleamed with moisture. Earlier in the evening they had gathered together in a lap-room, but, after closing time, they sat out-of-doors, as they knew that it was New Year's Eve, and for that reason they had betaken themselves to the shrubbery. They wanted to be near the steeple-clock, so as not to miss hearing when it was time to drink a toast to the New Year.
They were not sitting in darkness, but had abundance of light from the gleams thrown on the shrubbery by the electric lamps in the surrounding streets. Two of them were old and down-at-heel; a couple of unlucky tramps who had slunk into the town to swill up the coppers they had amassed by begging. The third was a man somewhat past thirty. He, like the others, was very shabbily dressed, but he was tall and well built, and seemed to be sound of limb and stalwart.
They were afraid of being discovered and driven off by the police, and that was the reason of their sitting close together, so that they might talk in low tones, almost in whispers. The younger fellow was doing the talking, and the other two were listening with-such rapt attention that they let the bottles he for a long while undisturbed.
"Once upon a time I had a chum," said the speaker, and his voice took a serious, almost eerie tone, while a gleam of cunning lit up his eyes, " who was always quite unlike his usual self on New Year's Eve. Not because he had on that day gone through his big account books and was dissatisfied with his year's profits, but simply because he had heard tell of something dangerous and mysterious which might befall anybody on that day. I assure you, friends, that he used to sit silent and anxious from morning to night, and would not once look at a drink. He was not a moody man otherwise, but it would have been as impossible to get him out on a New Year's Eve—for a little spree such as this— as it would be for one of you two to be hail-fellow-well-met with the Lord Lieutenant.
"Ah, well! I suppose you are wondering what he was afraid of. It was something of a job to get that out of him, but on one occasion; however, he told me what it was. Perhaps you Would not care to hear it to-night ? It does feel a bit dismal in a shrubbery like this, which, likely enough, may have been a graveyard in bygone days. What do you think ? "
As the two tramps naturally protested that they did not know what it was to be afraid of ghosts he proceeded to tell the story.
"He had come of a rather superior class, this man I'm telling you about. He had been a student at Upsala University, so he knew a little bit more than fellows like us, you see. And mark you, gentlemen, he kept
