Was he going to denounce Alick to his uncle and cousin? Was he taking Mr. Hopper down as a witness to Alick’s former marriage? And the mysterious legal-looking gentleman as a prosecutor?
As these thoughts chased themselves through her mind, she clasped her hands and moaned.
Oh, were they all three combining to go and overwhelm her Alick, and cover him with humiliation and confusion? she asked herself; and for the moment her Alick appeared to her, not as a criminal pursued by the just avengers, but as a victim hunted down by relentless persecutors, of whom she saw herself the chief.
“Oh, why—oh, why couldn’t I have kept still and let him marry his cousin and be happy with her? Oh, Alick! oh, poor Alick! But that would have been a crime. Ah, Heaven, how hard is my lot to have to choose between making him wretched or leaving him criminal!” she moaned, twisting her fingers and weeping.
She dreaded the coming of the morning. She feared the daylight that might discover her face to these men, who she thought were confederated to ruin her husband. She dreaded their recognizing and speaking to her. But she was determined to have nothing to say to them, or to do with them; for, under present circumstances she felt that any intercourse between her and them would look too much like entering into their conspiracy. And now her whole gentle soul revolted in horror from those three harmless and unconscious gentlemen, who were reclining on the seats before her, and “sleeping the sleep of innocence.”
Yes; all in the coach were at rest except herself. Nor could she, with all her mental distress, very long resist the influences that were wooing her to repose. Her excessive bodily fatigue, combined with the soporific qualities of the spiced cordial she had taken, the swinging motion of the coach and the lulling sound of the falling rain, soon overcame her consciousness, and she too slumbered in forgetfulness of all her sorrows.
She slept on for several hours, until she was awakened by the flashing of lights, the hallooing of men and the trampling of beasts, as the coach stopped to change horses at one of the nosiest post-houses on the road.
The other passengers were aroused at the same time.
Mammy awoke from some dream of her professional duties, yawned, stretching her jaws almost to dislocation, and thereby discovering a most fearful abyss, and still dreaming, exclaiming:
“Yaw-aw! Yes, honey! Tell the madam I’ll be up and dressed in one minute. And tell that boy to run for the doctor. Ow! Yaw-aw!”