“There isn't no auntie, dear,” said the landlady, gently. “You are at Dalton Inn But don't speak, dearie—you are too weak.”
“Dalton Inn,” repeated Edith, in a faint voice. She looked puzzled, for she was as yet too confused to remember. Gradually however, memory awaked, and though the recollection of her illness was a blank, yet the awful life that she had lived, and her flight from that life, with all its accompaniments, came gradually back.
She looked at the landlady with a face of agony.
“Promise,” said she, faintly.
“Promise what, dearie?”
“Promise—that—you will not—send me away.”
“Lord love you! send you away? Not me.”
“Promise,” said Edith, in feverish impatience, “that you will not let them take me—till I want to go.”
“Never; no one shall touch a hair of your head, dearie—till you wish it.”
The tone of the landlady gave Edith even more confidence than her words. “God bless you!” she sighed, and turned her head away.