"And you have been to see Katharine—that was very kind, Tom. If ever a good woman lived, she is one. How did you find her?"
"Handsomer than ever. I swan to man! she looked like an angel just come down, for all that linsey-woolsey dress. She's soft and still as a dove in brooding-time—never complains—never sheds no tears, but goes about like—like—oh, it aint of the least use trying to give you any idea of it."
"But her time is nearly up; she'll be coming out soon."
"Not jest to the day, I reckon. She told me not to let them send arter her, for she'd got a duty beyond her freedom day, and must wait till some one else was set free; then she would start for home, and stay with the old people all her life."
"It is like her, poor soul," said Paul, with deep feeling; "but who is the person for whose liberation she is waiting?"
"Jest step this way a minute, and I'll tell you."
Paul stepped aside, and walked reluctantly away from Rose.
"Look-a-here—she didn't tell me nothing, only in her sweet way asked me not to give the old folks any news that would trouble them, as if she kinder thought I knew; but if I didn't see Nelse Thrasher in that 'ere prison, that fellow has got a twin brother that's been tried and convicted."
Paul started. Had Thrasher indeed been punished? Was he now atoning his crime in prison? A moment's thought, and he understood it all. The generous privacy with which the trial had been kept, that disgrace need not reach Rose or her mother. He remembered now that soon after Mason's visit, the minister and his wife had been absent at the county town several days, and no one could tell why. How well the secret had been kept!
"We must not mention this before Rose," he said, thoughtfully.