“Yes, ma'am, I have been crying,” Abijah said unsteadily, “but I don't know as ever I shall cry again, for I have heard such good news as will last me the rest of my whole life.”
“What news, Abijah?” Mrs. Mulready asked quickly. “What are you making a mystery about, and what is that paper in your hand?”
“Well, ma'am, God has been very good to us all. I knew as he would be sooner or later, though sometimes I began to doubt whether it would be in my time, and it did break my heart to see Maister Ned going about so pale and unnatural like for a lad like him, and to know as there was people as thought that he was a murderer. And now, thank God, it is all over.”
“All over! what do you mean, Abijah?” Mrs. Mulready exclaimed, rising suddenly from her invalid chair.
“What do you mean by saying that it is all over?” and she seized the old nurse's arm with an eager grasp.
“Don't excite yourself so, mistress. You have been sore tried, but it is over now, and today all the world will know as Maister Ned is proved to be innocent. This here paper is a copy of the confession of the man as did it, and who is, they say, dead by this time. It was taken all right and proper afore a magistrate.”
“Innocent!” Mrs. Mulready gasped in a voice scarcely above a whisper. “Did you tell me, Abijah, that my boy, my boy Ned, is innocent?”
“I never doubted as he was innocent, ma'am; but now, thank God, all the world will know it. There, ma'am, sit yourself down. Don't look like that. I know as how you must feel, but for mercy sake don't look like that.”
Mrs. Mulready did not seem to hear her, did not seem to notice, as she passively permitted herself to be seated in the chair, while Abijah poured out a glass of wine. Her face was pale and rigid, her eyes wide open, her expression one of horror rather than relief.
“Innocent! Proved innocent!” she murmured. “What must he think of me—me, his mother!”