So Luke communicated this strange intelligence to Mr. Tallant, and that gentleman proceeded at once to the farm.
“Oh, how ill you look, sir; how much you are changed,” said the sick woman, when Mr. Tallant appeared.
Mr. Tallant paid no heed to the remark, but sat down upon the nearest chair, and asked what she had to say to him.
“I am dying, sir, I am dying,” said Mrs. Somerton.
“I hope not,” said Mr. Tallant; “you look ill and excited, but not like dying.”
“They all say that,” she replied; “but sometimes the patient knows more than the doctors. Luke and Amy, will you leave me with Mr. Tallant; I have something to say to him. You will know of it hereafter, but don’t stand by and hear me confess my own wickedness. I am going to confess in time for a great wrong to be remedied—that is something in the way of atonement.”
Mr. Somerton and his daughter exchanged looks of blank astonishment, and left the room.
“Yes, yes, that is some comfort. There’s little good exposing a wrong when it cannot be remedied,” the sick woman went on, as if communing with herself. “The very thought does me good; I shall feel easier when the load is off my mind.”
“What is this secret, Sarah?” Mr. Tallant asked, and his thoughts wandered back to the time when she acted as his housekeeper; the sound of her Christian name coming from his own mouth seemed like the revival of an old memory.
“Are they gone?” she asked.