Then before Ann Walden could speak again the woman was gone! They watched her beating her way through the wall of rain, without speaking; with every emotion gripped and silenced by fear and horror the two at the living-room window waited. They saw her reach the little foot-bridge; they saw her pause and hold to the railing as if for breath and then—there was nothing! The place where old Ivy had stood was empty. The cows, too, were going fast and helplessly away on a sea of troubled water.
Shock numbs the brain and stays suffering, but presently, like a frightened child rousing from sleep, Ann Walden turned to Cynthia.
"Ivy," she panted. "Ivy, where is she?"
Cynthia could not answer. She tried, but speech failed her. With large, fixed eyes she continued to stare at the blank space where once the little bridge had stood. What had happened was too awful for her comprehension. Then in the drear dimness of the room a hideous laugh rang out.
"Don't! don't, Aunt Ann!" Words came desperately now to the child; "oh! I'm so afraid!"
But again and again the laugh sounded.
"We-all are poor white trash! poor white trash! ha! ha! ha!"
Cynthia shrank from Ann Walden. What had happened she could not know, but of a sudden the old woman became a stranger, a stranger to be cared for and guarded—one to defend.
"Come," whispered Cynthia, "come away—dear—it's all right! Come, come!"
Alternately laughing and sobbing, Ann Walden followed the guiding of the hand upon her arm; she permitted herself to be placed on the ragged sofa on the opposite side of the room.