"Miss Edie, it must be lub. Nothin' else dan dat which so limbered up my ole jints could get any livin' man ober as much ground as he hoed dat night."
"Hush, Hannibal," said Edith, with dignity; "and remember that this is a secret between ourselves. Moreover, I wish you never to ask Mr. Lacey to do anything for us if it can possibly be helped, and never without my knowledge."
"You knows well, Miss Edie, dat you'se only to speak and it's done," said Hannibal, deprecatingly.
She gave him such a gentle, grateful look that the old man was almost ready to get down on his knees before her. Putting her hand on his shoulder, she said:
"What a good, faithful, old friend you are! You don't know how much I love you, Hannibal;" and she returned to her mother.
Hannibal rolled up his eyes and clasped his hands, as if before his patron saint, saying, under his breath:
"De idee of her lubing ole black Hannibal! I could die dis blessed minute," which was his way of saying, "Nunc dimittis."
Laura slept quietly till late in the afternoon, and wakened as if to a new and better life. Her manner was almost child-like. She had lost all confidence in herself, and seemed to wish to be controlled by Edith in all things, as a little child might be. But she was very feeble.
As the morning advanced Edith grew exceedingly weary. Reaction from her strong excitement seemed to bear her down in a weakness and lethargy that she could not resist, and by ten o'clock she felt that she must have some relief. It came from an unexpected source, for Hannibal appeared with a face of portentous solemnity, saying that Mrs. Lacey was downstairs, and that she wished to know if she could do something to help.
The mother's quick eye saw that something had deeply moved and was troubling her son. Indeed, for some time past, she had seen that into his unreal world had come a reality that was a source of both pain and pleasure, of fear and hope. While she followed him every hour of the day with an unutterable sympathy, she silently left him to open his heart to her in his own time and manner. But her tender, wistful manner told Arden that he was understood, and he preferred this tacit sympathy to any spoken words. But this morning the evidence of his mental distress was so apparent that she went to him, placed her hands upon his shoulders, and with her grave, earnest eyes looking straight into his, asked: