"While I was thus occupied, James Harrington joined me, and began speaking of his mother.
"'She is getting worse,' he said, 'and I can do nothing for her. It seems as if the presence of this slave girl has a baleful influence on every one she approaches!'
"I looked at him wonderingly. Why had he opened that subject with me. I had no wish to discuss it, even in reference to his mother. Before I could answer him, General Harrington and the Eatons joined us, and we all walked back to the hotel together.
"I went at once to Mrs. Harrington's room. She was lying on a couch near the window, with her hands clasped, and her eyes closed; but I saw the lids quivering, and discovered heavy tears dropping one by one, on the cushion beneath her head.
"'Are you so ill,' I said, sitting down on the edge of the couch and kissing her troubled forehead.
"'Ill!' she sobbed, lifting both arms toward my neck, like an unhappy child, 'Oh Mabel, my heart is broken. I shall never, never be well again!'
"She trembled all over, and seemed ready to go into convulsions in my arms.
"'What is it,' I said. 'What could have happened to distress you so?'
"She looked into my face so helplessly, that my soul yearned toward her.
"'Tell me, oh tell me of the trouble, for it is trouble, and nothing else,' I said, holding her close in my arms, for I felt that we were fellow-sufferers, and that my heart must ache with something more painful than sympathy.