“The way will be opened unto me,” she said to herself. “The way will be opened unto me, and the wicked shall perish. Yes, husband, you shall rest in peace.”
She started erect in her chair, and turned a fierce look of anger towards the door, as at that moment there was a light step, a shadow fell across the clean white stone, a sweet-toned, tremulous voice uttered her name, and there was the rustling of a dress upon the floor, while the next moment two soft arms were about her neck, her cheeks were wet with another’s tears. For Claude was kneeling by her, with her head resting on the hard, heavily-beating heart, and the girl’s broken voice fell upon her ears.
“My poor, poor Sarah! I could not come to you before. What can I do to help you? What can I say?”
Claude could not see the wild, agonised face, as she rested upon the trembling woman’s breast. There had been kindly, sympathetic, neighbourly words enough spoken to her before, but these—the words of the girl she had years before tended and loved, winning her gentle young love in return—went straight to her overcharged heart. The tears falling for her sorrow seemed to quench the burning glow of bitterness and hate, and the next moment vengeance, and the determination to execute her husband’s command, were swept away: her arms were tightening round the slight, girlish form as if it were something to which she could cling for safety, and the tears that had seemed dried up, after searing her brain, poured forth as she bent down sobbing hysterically, and in broken accents calling her visitor, “My darling bairn.”
Half-an-hour had passed, and the bitter wailing and hysterical cries had ceased, while the suffering woman’s breast heaved slowly now, like the surface of the sea quieting after a storm; but she still held Claude tightly to her, and rocked herself gently to and fro, as in bygone years she had held the girl when some trouble had brought her, motherless, and smarting from some bitter scolding, to seek for consolation and help.
The words came at last to break the silence of the solitary place.
“It was like you to come, my darling, and I shall never, never forget it. It was like you.”
“You know I would have come to you before, but poor papa has been so ill, and I dared not come away. But he is better now, and sitting up.”
The mention of Gartram seemed to harden the woman once more, and with a catching sigh she sat up rigidly in her chair. The thoughts of him who lay waiting in the next chamber brought with them the terrible scenes through which she had passed, and the scale of tenderness which Claude had borne down now rose upward to kick the beam.
“It was a terrible shock to him,” continued Claude. “You have been too full of your own trouble to know, but he was seized with a fit, and when I reached home I thought he was dead.”