"Speak out, child! Why should I be angry with you?"
"Do you know what it is?—Oh, I hardly know what I am saying! He is dying! he is dying!"
She sank on the floor, and covered her face with her hands. Hester stood a moment and looked at her weeping, her heart filled with sad dismay, mingled with a kind of wan hope. Then softly and quickly she opened the door of the room and went in.
Amy started to her feet, but too late to prevent her, and followed trembling, afraid to speak, but relieved to find that Hester moved so noiselessly.
It was a great room, but the roof came down to the floor nearly all round. It was lighted only with a skylight. In the farthest corner was a screen. Hester crept gently towards it, and Amy after her, not attempting to stop her. She came to the screen and peeped behind it. There lay a young man in a troubled sleep, his face swollen and red and blotched with the small-pox; but through the disfigurement she recognized her brother. Her eyes filled with tears; she turned away, and stole out again as softly as she came in. Amy had been looking up at her anxiously; when she saw the tenderness of her look, she gathered courage and followed her. Outside, Hester stopped, and Amy again closed the door.
"You will forgive him, won't you, miss?" she said pitifully,
"What do you want me to forgive him for, Amy?" asked Hester, suppressing her tears.
"I don't know, miss. You seemed angry with him. I don't know what to make of it. Sometimes I feel certain it must have been his illness coming on that made him weak in his head and talk foolishness; and sometimes I wonder whether he has really been doing anything wrong."
"He must have been doing something wrong, else how should you be here, Amy?" said Hester with hasty judgment.
"He never told me, miss: or of course I would have done what I could to prevent it," answered Amy, bewildered. "We were so happy, miss, till then! and we've never had a moment's peace since! That's why we came here—to be where nobody would find us. I wonder how he came to know the place!"