“It was not neglect. I slept heavier than I have ever slept before. I believe God helped her, for she was young and good and innocent.”
“You seem to entertain no sorrow for your neglect of duty.”
Her puzzled eyes, tired and questioning, met his.
“No, I do not feel sorry. How can I? She could not settle to this prison life as I have done. She was of a softer and more yielding nature. What hardens me would soon have killed her altogether.”
“Better be killed than get away alive without permission. And you, being the offender, must bear her punishment beside your own.”
A wintry smile crept to her lips.
“Oh! I am strong enough for any punishment. I have a frame of iron buried in what seems like flesh. If I have sinned, then name the punishment. But sin at times, if sin this be, brings near an echo of happier things beyond this life to conjure.”
“You are too hard-worked, you say.”
“I said I slept the sounder for it.”
“Sound sleeping is a thing for swine. You shall not work so hard, for you must sleep less heavily. You are intent upon a wedding-gown, I hear. Leave it unfinished.”