“I can’t look at her; it cleaves my heart in two, it does!” sobbed Mrs. Barton, covering her face again.
With a sudden impulse, Eudora started forward, and clasped the hand of her warder, exclaiming:
“Oh, listen to her! Listen to my friend! Give me leave to get away if I can; give me this one little chance of life. Think—I have got but one week to live; one short week, and then I am to die such a horrible death! Oh, pity me! let me go!”
“Oh, this is dreadful—dreadful! I would do anything in the world for you, poor child; but I dar’n’t do this—I dar’n’t betray my trust,” replied Mrs. Barton, wildly weeping.
“Suppose I was your own child, you would let me go—you would risk your soul’s salvation to free me; or, if I had a mother, she would move heaven and earth to save me—but I am motherless. Oh, pity me as if I were your child, and let me go!”
“I darn’t; Lord help me, I darn’t. And even if I did, poor dear, it wouldn’t save you; you’d be known and tuk up again afore you got outside of the prison gates. Lawk, yes; afore you even got to the head o’ the stairs o’ this very ward; and then your case would be worse nor it is now.”
“It could not be worse; and if the chance is ever so small, still it is one. Oh, give me this little, little chance of life! I do not deserve to die this horrible death.”
“I’d rather die this minute myself than refuse you. I mustn’t be a traitor. Sure, you wouldn’t have me go agin my conscience?”
Without another word Eudora turned and sat down on the bed, dropped her clasped hands upon her lap, her pale face upon her breast, and sat in an attitude and expression of blended shame and resignation.
“How could you be so hard-hearted and cruel?” exclaimed Annella.