Arthur walked to her, and placed his hand softly upon her yellow hair.
"Oh, Mary!" he murmured, in a tone of gentle sorrow, that sounded strangely amid the discordant merriment that filled the room.
She looked up, at his touch, but when his voice fell upon her ear, she arose suddenly and stood before him like one struck dumb betwixt humiliation and wonder. The angel had not yet fled that bosom, for the blush of shame glowed through the chalk upon her brow and outcrimsoned the paint upon her cheek. As it passed away, she would have wreathed her lip mechanically with the pert smile of her vocation, but the smile was frozen ere it reached her lips, and the coarse words she would have spoken died into a murmur and a sob. She sank down again upon the cushion, and bent her face low down upon her hands.
"Oh, Mary! is it you! is it you! I pray heaven your mother be in her grave!"
She rose and escaped quickly from the room; but he followed her and checked her at the stairway.
"Let me speak with you, Mary. No, not here; lead me to your room."
He followed her up-stairs, and closing the door, sat beside her as she leaned upon the bed and buried her face in the pillow.
It was the child of his old nurse. Upon the hill-sides of his native State they had played together when children, and now she lay there before him, with scarce enough of woman's nature left to weep for her own misery.
"Mary, how is this? Look up, child," he said, taking her hand kindly. "I had rather see you thus, bent low with sorrow, than bold and hard in guilt. But yet look up and speak to me. I will be your friend, you know. Tell me, why are you thus?"
"Oh, Mr. Wayne, do not scold me, please don't. I was thinking of home and mother when you came and put your hand on my head. Mother's dead."