Bitter tears of mingled sorrow and shame welled into her eyes and blinded her. They fell from her cheeks upon the cheeks of the fretting child.
"Oh, Frank—oh, little honey boy!" she sobbed. "I hope you may never live to know such wretchedness as I have known! Better that you should die now! Better you had never been born! Why was I born? Why was I set adrift in this wretched, wicked old world? Not one thing in life has ever gone right with me!"
A crashing sound gave her a start, and she saw the man returning on a run. As he passed a corner of the old hut one foot seemed to break through the ground, and he went down. With some difficulty, he drew forth his leg from a hole into which he had plunged. Pausing, he looked down into that hole, and far beneath he caught a faint mercurylike glitter.
"An old well," he muttered. "The brush and deadwood had fallen over the mouth of it and hidden it. I came near dropping in there myself."
"Are you hurt, Selwin?" called the woman.
"No," he answered; "but I came mighty near falling into a trap."
As he approached her she observed a look on his face that gave her a shuddery chill.
"Let me take the child," he said.
"No; I'll carry him a little while. Did you see anything of the pursuers?"
"See them?" he snarled. "Curse them, yes!"