Powell sat down. "I would not pain the good soul for any earthly consideration," he answered. "But if the burthen be laid on me, I must pain her."
"Come, Mr. Powell, no injunction can be laid on you to starve yourself, and grow ill, and be unable to fulfil your duties!"
After an instant's hesitation he swallowed some tea, and began to break off small fragments of the bread, which he soaked in the liquid, and ate slowly.
Minnie watched him attentively. The widow had lighted a candle, which, standing on the high mantel-shelf, shed down its pale rays on the preacher's head and face, the rest of his person being in shadow. Now and again, as he lifted a morsel of bread to his lips, one thin long hand, yellow-white as old ivory, came within the circle of light. His whole countenance appeared to Minnie to have undergone a change since she had seen him last. The features were sharper, the skin more sallow, the lines around the mouth deeper. But the greatest change was in the expression of the eyes. They were wonderfully lustrous, but not with the soft mild lustre which formerly shone in them. They looked startlingly large and prominent; and at times seemed literally to blaze with an inward fire.
"He is ill and feverish," thought Minnie. And then, as she continued to watch him, there came over his face an expression so infinitely piteous, that the sympathetic tears sprang into her eyes when she saw it. It was a pathetic, questioning, bewildered look, like that of a little child that has lost its way, and is frightened.
When he had eaten a few mouthfuls, he asked, "Who told you that you would find me here?"
"Oh, it was not difficult to discover your whereabouts in Whitford, Mr. Powell," answered Minnie, smiling with an effort to seem cheerful and at ease. "Your coming has been spoken of in our little town for weeks past."
"Has it so? Has it so? That is a good hearing. There must be souls ripe for conviction—anxious, inquiring souls."
There was a pause. Minnie had expected him to speak of their last interview. But as he made no allusion to it, she opened the subject herself.
"You remember, Mr. Powell, before you went away from Whitford, giving me a charge—a trust to fulfil for you?"