He came in tottering, as if under the influence of intoxication; but we all know that excessive sorrow takes away the strength and senses as surely as intoxication does. There is such a state as being drunken with grief when we have drained the bitter cup dry!
"Hannah," he faltered, "there are some things which should be remembered even in this awful hour."
The sorrowing woman, her fingers still softly pressing down her sister's eyelids, looked up in mute inquiry.
"Your necessities and—Nora's child must be provided for. Will you give me some writing materials?" And the speaker dropped, as if totally prostrated, into a chair by the table.
With some difficulty Hannah sought and found an old inkstand, a stumpy pen, and a scrap of paper. It was the best she could do. Stationery was scarce in the poor hut. She laid them on the table before Herman. And with a trembling hand he wrote out a check upon the local bank and put it in her hand, saying:
"This sum will provide for the boy, and set you and Gray up in some little business. You had better marry and go to the West, taking the child with you. Be a mother to the orphan, Hannah, for he will never know another parent. And now shake hands and say good-by, for we shall never meet again in this world."
Too thoroughly bewildered with grief to comprehend the purport of his words and acts, Hannah mechanically received the check and returned the pressure of the hand with which it was given.
And the next instant the miserable young man was gone indeed.
Hannah dropped the paper upon the table; she did not in the least suspect that that little strip of soiled foolscap represented the sum of five thousand dollars, nor is it likely that she would have taken it had she known what it really was. Hannah's intellects were chaotic with her troubles. She returned to the bedside and was once more absorbed in her sorrowful task, when she was again interrupted.
This time it was by old Dinah, who, having no hand at liberty, shoved the door open with her foot, and entered the hut.