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 of his persecutors are heard all the time around his hiding place.

They had all come: the wives of the judge, of the tax collector, of the doctor, and of four aldermen, and three portly widows,—in short, all the somebodies. Their inquisitive, quick eyes and glib tongues kept prodding her, and the good old lady warded off their attacks with remarkable dexterity. Lucy trembled with terror at the thought that they might find all out.

How different this new life appeared to her now! She felt it, she lived it with the whole power of her soul; but she trembled with burning shame at the pictures from the past, which, unbidden, at times flashed before her soul’s eye. She was pure, but something was lacking, she did not herself know what, or how to name it,—some goal towards which to aim, some purpose for which to live. The horror of this vacuum frightened her at night, when she looked from her bed through the open window at the stars, or