'The little lass 'ud die very easy,' whispered Cole, passing his arm tighter round Stephen; 'and she's up in heaven among the angels by this time, I reckon.'
Stephen drew himself away from Cole's arm, and staggered forward a step or two to meet Tim; when he took the sad burden from him, and sat down without a word, pressing it closely to his breast. His perfect silence touched all about him. Miss Anne hid her face in her hands, and some of the men groaned aloud.
'The old pit ought to have been bricked up years ago,' said Cole; 'the child's death will be upon the master's head.'
'It'll all go to one reckoning,' muttered Black Thompson. But Stephen seemed not to hear their words. Still, with the child clasped tightly to him, he waited for the lowering of the skip, and when it descended, he seated himself in it without lifting up his head, which was bent over the dead child. Miss Anne and Tim took their places beside him, and they were drawn up to the broad, glittering light of day on the surface, where a crowd of eager bystanders was waiting for Stephen's appearance.
'Don't speak to me, please,' he murmured, without looking round; and they made way for him in his deep, silent grief, as he passed on homewards, followed by Miss Anne. Once she saw him look up to the hills, where, at Fern's Hollow, the new house stood out conspicuously against the snow; and when they passed the shaft, he shuddered visibly; but yet he was silent, and scarcely seemed to know that she was walking beside him.
The cabin was full of women from Botfield, for Martha had fallen into violent fits of hysterics, and none of their remedies had any effect in soothing her. One of them took the dead child from Stephen's arms at the door, and bade him go away and sit in her cottage till she came to him. But he turned off towards the hills; and Miss Anne, seeing that she could say nothing to comfort him just then, watched him strolling along the old road that led to Fern's Hollow, with his arms folded and his head bent down, as if he were still carrying that sad burden which he had borne up from the pit, so closely pressed against his heart.
CHAPTER XV.
RENEWED CONFLICT.
'I'm a murderer, Miss Anne,' said Martha, with a look of settled despair upon her face, on the evening of the next day.