Overcome by her emotions, Mrs. Fergus, her hand still in Bernard’s grasp, bent forward till her crimps rested on the young man’s shoulder. She moved her forehead gingerly about till it seemed certain that the ornaments were sustaining no injury. Then she gave her maternal feelings full sway and sobbed with fervor against the coat of the young man from Houghton County.
“Don’t cry, Mrs. O’Daly,” was all Bernard could think of to say.
The demonstration might perhaps have impressed him had he not perforce looked over the weeping lady’s head straight into the face of the mother superior. There he saw written such contemptuous incredulity that he himself became conscious of skepticism.
“Don’t take on so!” he urged, this time less gently, and strove to disengage himself.
But Mrs. Fergus clung to his hand and resolutely buried her face against his collar. Sister Ellen had risen to her feet beside Mother Agnes, and he heard the two nuns sniff indignantly. Then he realized that the situation was ridiculous.
“What is it you suspect?” he asked of the mother superior, eager to make a diversion of some kind.
“You can’t be imagining that harm’s come to Miss Kate—that she ’s drowned?”
“That same was our belafe,” said Mother Agnes, glaring icily upon him and his sobbing burden.
The inference clearly was that the spectacle before her affronted eyes had been enough to overturn all previous convictions, of whatever character.
Bernard hesitated no longer. He almost wrenched his hand free and then firmly pushed Mrs. Fergus away.