"Nay, I want no ring from a little lass in trouble. I'll get the carriage, and you may drop into the church some better day to pay me."
She went back home in the midst of a thunderstorm. The day was darkened, the rain driven furiously by the wind, and yet when she reached her father's house the front entrance stood open and there was neither men nor women servants in sight. She ran swiftly to her room, locked the door and sank into a chair, spent with fear and sick with apprehension. What had happened? What would be done to her? "Oh, to be back in New York!" she cried. "Nobody there would force a poor girl into misery and make a prayer over it, and a feast about it."
A sudden movement of her head showed her Maria Semple in her wedding dress. She turned herself quickly from the glass, and with frantic haste unfastened the gown and hung it up. All the trinkets in which they had dressed her were as quickly removed, and she was not satisfied until she had cast off every symbol of the miserably frustrated marriage. But as hour after hour passed and no one came near her she became sick with terror, and she was also faint with hunger and thirst. Something must be ventured, some one must be seen; she felt that she would lose consciousness if she was left alone much longer.
After repeatedly ringing her bell, it was answered by one of the women. "I want some tea, Mary, and some meat and bread. What is the matter with every one?"
"The doctors do say as Mrs. Semple is dying, and the master is like a man out of his mind." The woman spoke with an air of distinct displeasure, if not dislike, but she brought the food and tea to Maria, and without further speech left her to consider what she had been told.
Oh, how long were the gloomy hours of the day! How much longer those of the terrible night! The very atmosphere was full of pain and fear; lights were passing up and down, and footsteps and inarticulate movements, all indicating the great struggle between life and death. And Maria lay dressed upon her bed, sleepless, listening and watching, and seeing always in the dim rushlight that white shimmering gown splashed with rain, and hanging limply by one sleeve. It grew frightful to her, threatening, uncanny, and she finally tore it angrily down and flung it into a closet.
MARIA LAY DRESSED UPON HER BED.
But the weariest suspense comes to some end finally, and just as dawn broke there was a sudden change. The terror and the suffering were over; peace stole through every room in the house, for a man child was born to the house of Semple.