"No," she answered. "I am come to stay, so long as you both want me."
"Mother wants you," I said. "She doesn't love me any more."
"Kitty, it is not that," Mary answered. "You mustn't think it for a moment. Your poor mother isn't fully herself with the trouble. If she could cry she would be better, but she can't shed a tear, and till she does—"
"She wouldn't kiss me," I said. "Oh, I know I deserve it. I know it's the punishment."
Mary let me say so much, and then she told me not to talk any more. She whispered softly something about the love of God, and how He would take care of us all.
The difference of having her there! But nothing could lighten the great heavy load of pain.
We did not speak of Walter. His name never once came up. I thought of him, yet hardly cared to ask or hear. I could only feel that my father was gone. Everything to do with Walter seemed so small and far away—except the sorrow he and I had caused to father those last few days.
I was in bed about a fortnight, not able to get up: not regularly ill, but too weak and knocked down for anything else. And all that fortnight mother never came into my room.
She was up and about, I knew that. I could hear her step on the stairs, slow and dragging, but still mother's step. She was busy about the house, doing her usual work; and Mr. Baitson said it was better for her than sitting still to brood, though she often did that too.
Yes, I heard her step, but not her voice. Scarce a word passed her lips from morning till night. She was affectionate to Mary in a sort of dull dreary way, but she didn't talk to her nor any one. And she never so much as asked how I was. If Mary spoke of me, mother turned away.