Instantly the ring was broken up. Edward Clark leaped forward, and with a blow, rendered powerful by honest indignation, smote the insulter to the ground. For one moment Mary looked around bewildered, as if she did not comprehend the nature of the taunt; then the blood rushed up to her face, her soft blue eyes blazed with a sudden flash of fire, the little hand was clenched, and her distorted form dilated with passion. Instantly the blood flowed back upon her heart, her white lips closed over her clenched teeth, and she fell forward with her face upon the ground, as one stricken by unseen lightning.
The group gathered around her, awe-stricken and afraid. They could not comprehend this fearful burst of passion in a creature habitually so gentle and sweet-tempered. It seemed as if the insolent boy had crushed her to death with a sneer.
Her brave defender knelt and raised her head to his bosom, tears of generous indignation still lingered on his burning cheek, and his form shook with scarcely abated excitement.
At length Mary Derwent arose with the calmness of a hushed storm upon her face, and turning to her inevitable solitude walked silently away.
There was something terrible in the look of anguish with which she left her companions, taking, as it were, a silent and eternal farewell of all the joys that belong to childhood. The coarse taunt of the boy had been a cruel revelation, tearing away all the tender shields and loving delusions with which home-affection had so long sheltered her. She did not know what meaning lay in the word hunchback, but felt, with a sting of unutterable shame, that it was applied to her because she was unlike other girls. That she must never be loved as they were—never hope to be one of them again.
The school-children looked on this intense passion with silent awe. Even Jane dared not utter the sympathy that filled her eyes with tears, or follow after her sister.
So with terror and shame at the cruel discovery at her heart, Mary went away. The blood throbbed in her temples and rushed hotly through all her veins. An acute sense of wrong seized upon her, and thirsting to be alone she fled to the woods like a hunted animal, recoiling alike from her playfellows and her home.
Through the thick undergrowth and over wild rocks the poor creature tore her way, struggling and panting amid the thorny brushwood, as if life and death depended upon her progress.
A striped squirrel ran along the boughs of a chestnut-tree and peered down upon her from among the long green leaves and tassel-like blossoms. A flush came to her beautiful forehead, and with a cry that seemed in itself a pang, she tore up a stone to fling at it. The squirrel started away, uttering a broken noise that fell upon her sore heart like a taunt. Why did the little creature follow her? Why did it bend those sharp, black eyes upon her, with its head turned so mockingly upon one side? Was she never to be alone? Was the cruel animal still gibing at her through the chestnut-leaves?
The squirrel darted from bough to bough, and at last ran down the trunk of the chestnut. Mary followed it with eager glances till her eyes fell upon the root of the tree. The stone dropped from her hand, the angry color fled from her face, and stretching out her arms with a cry that perished on her lips she waited for the missionary to descend.