She raised her head, and answered: "I think that I could walk; but this, you see, is the only hospitality that I can accept, save, it may be, some bread and a little meat, that the child suffer no more, until I reach Winnanbar, which, I fear, is still far away."
"This," I replied, "is Winnanbar; the homestead is over there, beyond the hill."
"This is—Winnanbar?" she whisperingly said, "this—is—Winnanbar! I did not think—I was-so near." . . . A thankful look came to her face. She rose, and took the child again and pressed it to her breast, and her eyes brooded upon it. "Now she is beautiful," I thought, and waited for her to speak.
"Sir—" she said at last, and paused. In the silence a footstep sounded without, and then a form appeared in the doorway. It was Glenn.
"I followed you," he said to me; "and—!" He saw the woman, and a low cry broke from her.
"Agnes! Agnes!" he cried, with something of sternness and a little shame.
"I have come—to you—again-Robert," she brokenly, but not abjectly, said.
He came close to her and looked into her face, then into the face of the child, with a sharp questioning. She did not flinch, but answered his scrutiny clearly and proudly. Then, after a moment, she turned a disappointed look upon me, as though to say that I, a stranger, had read her aright at once, while this man held her afar in the cold courts of his judgment ere he gave her any welcome or said a word of pity.
She sank back on the bench, and drew a hand with sorrowful slowness across her brow. He saw a ring upon her finger. He took her hand and said: "You are married, Agnes?"
"My husband is dead, and the sister of this poor one also," she replied; and she fondled the child and raised her eyes to her brother's.