In the evenings, especially when her temperature rose, she became talkative and incoherent and Catherine would sometimes tremble as she caught the sentences which, little by little, built up the girl's bidden tragedy before her eyes.

London streets, London lights, London darkness, the agony of an endless wandering, the little clinging puny life, which could never be stilled or satisfied, biting cold, intolerable pain, the cheerless workhouse order, and, finally, the arms without a burden, the breast without a child--these were the sharp fragments of experience, so common so terrible to the end of time, which rose on the troubled surface of Mary Backhouse's delirium, and smote the tender heart of the listener.
Then in the mornings she would lie suspicious and silent, watching Catherine's face with the long gaze of exhaustion, as though trying to find out from it whether her secret had escaped her.

The doctor, who had gathered the story of the 'bogle' from Catherine, to whom Jim had told it, briefly and reluctantly, and with an absolute reservation of his own views on the matter, recommended that if possible they should try and deceive her as to the date of the day and month.

Mere nervous excitement might, he thought, be enough to kill her when the actual day, and hour came round.

But all their attempts were useless.