Everything she became
aware of surprised her, except the child in her arms. Her story had been
plain to every one she met, and she had received thousands of kindnesses
which her memory could not hold. At length, intentionally or not, she found
herself in a neighbourhood to which she had heard James Blatherwick refer.
Here again a dead blank stopped her backward gaze--till suddenly once more
she grew aware, and knew that she was aware, of being alone on a wide moor
in a dim night, with her hungry child, to whom she had given the last drop
of nourishment he could draw from her, wailing in her arms. Then fell upon
her a hideous despair, and unable to carry him a step farther, she dropped
him from her helpless hands into a bush, and there left him, to find, as
she thought, some milk for him. She could sometimes even remember that she
went staggering about, looking under the great stones, and into the clumps
of heather, in the hope of finding something for him to drink. At last, I
presume, she sank on the ground, and lay for a time insensible; anyhow,
when she came to herself, she searched in vain for the child, or even the
place where she had left him.
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