They proceeded to the stricken house. The Doctor entered and presently Bim came out. Her eyes filled with tears and for a moment she could not speak. She wore a white dress and cap and was pale and weary. "But still as I looked at her I thought of the saying of her father that her form and face reminded him of the singing of birds in the springtime, she looked so sweet and graceful," Samson writes in his diary.
"Why didn't you let me know of your troubles?" he asked.
"Early last summer I wrote a long letter to you," she answered.
"It didn't reach me. One day in June the stage was robbed of its mail down in Tazewell County. Your letter was probably on that stage."
"Harry's death was the last blow. I came out here to get away from my troubles—perhaps to die. I didn't care."
"Harry is not dead," said Samson.
Her right hand touched her forehead; her lips fell apart; her eyes took on a look of tragic earnestness.
"Not dead!" she whispered.
"He is alive and well."
Bim staggered toward him and fell to her knees and lay crouched upon the ground, in the dusky twilight, shaking and choked with sobs, and with tears streaming from her eyes but she was almost as silent as the shadow of the coming night. She looked like one searching in the dust for something very precious. The strong heart of Samson was touched by the sorrowful look of her so that he could not speak.