"I did." His voice sounded hoarse. The little girl felt almost sorry for him.
"Oh! Then you will bring her right back to us again and send this other woman away, won't you?"
"Child, your mother is dead!"
Dawn's face went as white as death, and she sprang to her feet, clasping her hands in horror.
"Then you have killed her!" she screamed. "You have killed her! My beautiful mother!" and with a wild cry she flung herself upon the floor and broke into a passion of tears.
The strong man writhed in anguish as his little child set the mark of Cain upon his forehead.
The outcry brought the step-mother, but neither noticed her as she entered and demanded the reason for this scene. She tried to pick the child up from the floor, but Dawn only beat her off with kicks and screams, and they finally went away and left her weeping there upon the floor. Her father took his hat and walked out into the woods. There he stayed for hours, while the wife went about with set lips and a glint in her eye that boded no good for the child.
Finally the sobs grew less and less frequent, and the old clock in the hall could again be heard in her ears, as she sobbed herself slowly to sleep: "Poor-child! Poor-child! Poor-child! Poor-child!"
It was after this that they sent her away to school.
CHAPTER II