Bad Hugh

"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.