“And you feel well?”
“Oh yes, better to-day than I have for a long, long time. I’m going to get stronger now steadily,” she said, with a smile that, for a moment, brought into the wan face a strange beauty, like a gleam of the same radiance that so far in the past poor Jacob had placed upon the shrine of his heart.
Hannah, turning her head quickly, almost overpowered by sudden faintness, went up stairs, staggered across the room, and sank down by the window in a silent agony of grief. She did not sob or cry audibly, her whole being was one mental wail of despair—her mother! her gentle, waiting mother! Fierce unspoken rebellion had taken possession of the girl’s soul. To one that had been always as a ministering spirit to those about her, why had Providence allotted so cruel a destiny? She, whose life had been but a long heart-struggle; she, that had done no evil, that had suffered without a murmur; she, feeble and bent with years, marked with the silver brand of sorrow and age; she, far down the avenue of her days, almost where the mighty mists of eternity close up their impenetrable curtains, she must yet be compelled to go on, to the last, through the darkness of new trouble! Was there no mercy, no justice?
Bitterly Hannah looked out, dry-eyed, at the relentless sea. There was no distant line against the sky; above, below, drear and empty, the gray stretched to infinity—not a sail on all the waters, and the tides were out—aye, the tides were out for her.
She had never shed a tear. Forgetful of her wet clothing, she leaned a long time upon the window-sill, motionless, and the lines in her young face were hard and strained. Perhaps the memory of that night came back to her with its vision of the royal planet that had seemed a star of promise—a star of promise? A mockery it had been, a cruel mockery!
Then Miriam’s voice calling from the foot of the stairs roused her, and hurriedly she changed her damp dress, but she could not yet meet her mother. She lingered about the room. She fell upon her knees; she tried to pray, but her heart refused to utter a single petition, and Miriam had called again and yet again before Hannah went down.
“Come close to the fire. You were so long I am afraid it will make you sick.”
“No, mother, I am cold a little, that is all.”
Miriam did not ask again what had taken her out, and Hannah, shading her eyes with her hand, sat by the grate trying to prepare herself for the dreadful duty that awaited her. She knew her mother must be told, lest it should come upon her abruptly from the lips of a stranger with a shock greater than she could bear. It was a hard struggle for Hannah; the girl would gladly have borne all the trouble herself, but that could not be.
Just how she said it she never remembered, only suddenly she felt calm and strong for the duty, and with a strange desperation on her face, slowly, gently as human means could do, she told the terrible news.