The matron went out and returned with a bundle of clothes and a black bonnet upon which was some rusty crape; a huge, old-fashioned thing that framed in her silver-white hair like a pent-house. The very shape and fashion of this bonnet was pathetic—it spoke of so long ago. The black dress and soft shawl with which she had come to the prison were a little moth-eaten, but not much, for they had been carefully hoarded; but the poor old woman looked with a sigh on her prison-dress as it fell to the floor, and wept bitterly before she went out, as if that gloomy mass of stones had been a pleasant home to her.
Slowly, and with a downcast look, the old woman went out of the prison, up through the rugged quarries, where a gang of men were at work, dragging their weary limbs from stone to stone, with the listless, haggard effort of forced labor. Some of these men looked up, as she passed them, and watched her with bitter envy.
"There goes a pardon," they said to each other; "and that old woman with one foot in the grave, while we are young and strong! Freedom would be everything to us; but what good will it do to her?"
So the poor old prisoner passed on, sadly bewildered and afraid, like a homeless child, but thanking God for a mercy she could not yet realize.
There was one place to which she must go. It might be empty and desolate, but there her son had died, and she had seen the roof of his dwelling from the graveyard when they let her come out from prison to see him buried.
She knew the road, for her path led to the grave first, and after that she could find the way, for every step, so far, had been marked by a pang, to which her heart was answering back now.
At sunset, that day, some workmen, passing the village burying-place, saw an old woman sitting by a grave that had been almost forgotten in the neighborhood.
She was looking dreary and forlorn in the damp enclosure, for clouds were drifting low in the sky, and a cold rain was beginning to fall; but they did not know that this poor woman had a home-feeling by that grave, even with the rain falling, which belonged to no other place on earth.
A little later, when the gray darkness was creeping on, this same tall figure might have been discovered moving through the rough cedar pillars of the Yates cottage. There was no light in the house, for no human soul lived beneath its roof; but a door was so lightly fastened that she got it open with some effort, and entered what seemed to her like the kitchen; for the last tenant had left some kindling-wood in the fireplace, and two or three worn-out cooking utensils stood near the hearth, where they were beginning to rust.
When she left the prison, the matron had, with many kind words, thrust a parcel into the old woman's hand. Knowing her helplessness, she had provided food for a meal or two, and to this had added some matches and candles.