CHAPTER XV
"Every heart vibrates to that iron string."
And Mary's was vibrating to the iron as she plodded up the trail.
There had been much damage done by the storm. Trees were lying across the muddy path; there were washed-out spots, making it necessary to go out of one's way. But Mary did not notice the obstacles further than to make a wide detour. She was thinking, thinking—patching her bits of knowledge together with surmises provided by her vivid imagination.
Beginning with the day when old Becky, looking for Sister Angela, had stolen into the kitchen at Ridge House and demanded "her," Mary patiently fitted her scraps into a pattern as she patched her wonderful quilts.
"Yes; no!" Then a stolid nodding of the head.
The sunset, bye and bye, and then the early shadows, crept up the trail behind the lonely woman plodding along; they seemed to swallow her, and only her quick breathing marked her going.
"I can pay—at last!" She paused and spoke the words aloud.