Bessie's Fortune

When Hannah reached home the gray November afternoon was already merging into the dark night, which was made still darker by the violence of the increasing storm, and never had Hannah's home seemed so desolate and dreary as it did when the sleigh turned from the highway into the cross-road which lead to it, and she saw through the gathering gloom the low, snow-covered roof and the windows from which no welcoming light was shining. It had been so bright, and cheerful, and warm in the drawing-room at Grey's Park, and here all was cold, and cheerless, and dark, as she went into the house with a vague presentiment of the horror awaiting her.

Entering through the wood-shed she stumbled upon Sam, who was sitting on a pile of wood, and who said to her: "I guess your father is mighty bad. I didn't go near him till I heard him groaning and praying, and taking on so, that I opened the door and asked if he wanted anything. Then he jumped out of bed and told me to be gone, spying on him, and he locked the door on me, and I heard him as if he was under the bed trying to tear up the floor, and I ran out here, for I was afraid."

"Under the bed!" Hannah repeated, while a cold sweat oozed from every pore. "He must be crazy! But do not come with me to his room; it would make him worse. I can manage him alone; but please make a fire in the summer kitchen and stay there this evening. Father seems to know when any one is in the next room and it troubles him."

"Yes-m," the boy replied, thinking it a very strange freak that the old man would allow no one with him except his daughter.

But Sam was neither quick nor suspicious, and glad of any change from the cold wood-shed, he started to kindle a fire in the room adjoining, which in summer was used for a kitchen, while Hannah, lighting a candle, hastened to the door of her father's room, which she found locked, while from within she heard labored breathing, and a sound like tugging at a board which evidently offered resistance.

"Father," she cried, in terror, "let me in! It is I, Hannah, and Sam is in the wood-shed."

After a moment the key was turned and Hannah stepped inside, locking the door after her.

In the middle of the floor her father stood, with his long white hair falling around his corpse-like face and his eyes bright with the excitement of delirium. The bed was moved toward the center of the room and in the farthest corner a board of the floor had been partially removed.