She writhed in anguish on her bed, weak, fragile, tortured, it seemed as if she must die before another shock reached her.
"Dead—buried in the snow," she kept repeating.
The mother knelt by the bed, holding forth her arms, which the wretched girl could not see.
"Ask God to give you strength, Katharine."
"You ask him for me, mother; my heart aches so."
"Oh, Katharine, we have greater trouble yet to come."
"Greater trouble than the death of one's little babe—that can never be!" Katharine answered with pathetic pain. "No, no, mother, that can never be!"
"Katharine, the neighbors believe that—" she paused, put a hand to her throat, as if the words strangled her, and went on in a voice so near a whisper that it sounded unearthly, "believe that you killed the child."
"Kill my child! Did they know I was its mother?"
"Killed and buried it with your own hands in the snow," persisted the woman, drearily. "This is what they charge you with, my daughter."