She was turning to go when a sound arrested her.
It was the sound of a suppressed sob, and seemed to issue from the cart-shed.

'Lizabeth turned quickly and held up her lantern.

Under the shed, and barely four paces from her, sat a woman.
The woman was perched against the shaft of a hay-waggon, with her feet resting on a mud-soiled carpet-bag.

She made but a poor appealing figure, tricked out in odds and ends of incongruous finery, with a bonnet, once smart, hanging limply forward over a pair of light-coloured eyes and a very lachrymose face.

The ambition of the stranger's toilet, which ran riot in cheap jewellery, formed so odd a contrast with her sorry posture that 'Lizabeth, for all her wonder, felt inclined to smile.
"What's your business here ?" "Oh, tell me," whimpered the woman, "what's he doing all this time?
Won't his father see me?
He don't intend to leave me here all night, surely, in this bitter cold, with nothing to eat, and my gown ruined!" "He ?" 'Lizabeth's attitude stiffened with suspicion of the truth.
"William, I mean; an' a sorry day it was I agreed to come." "William ?" "My husband.