"Let's go home, I'm sorry I came to Frankfort," she whispered, while her
teeth chattered and her eyes wore a look of terror for which Hugh could
not account.
He never thought of associating her illness with the man who had so
affected himself. It was overexertion, he said. His mother could not
bear much, and with all the tenderness of an affectionate son he wrapped
her shawl about her and led her gantry from the spot which held for her
so great a terror. It was not physical fear; she had never been afraid
of bodily harm, even when fully in his power. It was rather the olden
horror stealing back upon her, the pain which comes from the slow
grinding out of one's entire will and spirit. She had forgotten the
feeling, it was so long since it had been experienced, but one sight of
him brought it back, and all the way from Frankfort to Spring Bank she
lay upon Hugh's shoulder quiet, but sick and faint, with a shrinking
from what the future might possibly have in store for her.
In this state of mind she reached Spring Bank, where by some strange
coincidence, if coincidence it can be called, old Densie Densmore was
the first to greet her, asking, with much concern, what was the matter.
It was a rare thing for Densie to be at all demonstrative, but in the
suffering expression of Mrs. Worthington's face she recognized something
familiar, and attached herself at once to the weak, nervous woman, who
sought her bed, and burying her face in the pillow cried herself to
sleep, while Densie, like some white-haired ghost, sat watching her
silently.
"The poor thing has had trouble," she whispered, "trouble in her day,
and it has left deep furrows in her forehead, but it cannot have been
like mine. She surely, was never betrayed, or deserted, or had her only
child stolen from her. The wretch! I cursed him once, when my heart was
harder than it is now. I have forgiven him since, for well as I could, I
loved him."
There was a moaning sound in the winter wind howling about Spring Bank
that night, but it suited Densie's mood, and helped to quiet her
spirits, as, until a late hour, she sat by Mrs. Worthington, who aroused
up at intervals, saying, in answer to Densie's inquiries, she was not
sick, she was only tired--that sleep would do her good.
And while they were thus together a convict sought his darkened cell and
laid him down to rest upon the narrow couch which had been his bed so
long. Drearily to him the morning broke, and with the struggling in of
the daylight he found upon his floor the handkerchief dropped
inadvertently by Mrs. Worthington, and unseen till now. He knew it was
not unusual for strangers to visit the cells, and so he readily guessed
how it came there, holding it a little more to the light to see the name
written so plainly upon it.