Tesney swooned, and fell back upon her pillow. When next conscious of her surroundings, Tesney found herself in bed in a log cabin, with her three-hundred-and-fifty-pound tormentor still at her side.
From that time until her death she was a prisoner. Not more than a dozen times did she seem sane. She would stand before the glass and ask for her old self. Sometimes she called Agnes a girl. Then she would call her a woman.
"Agnes," said she, on one occasion, "here is a rope. Let us skip."
When Tesney's baby boy was between three and four weeks old George was killed in a drunken brawl. Two days afterward he was buried, a short distance from the house. Tesney was in bed. Agnes did not go to the grave. She dragged her three hundred and fifty pounds out doors to cool, cry, and repent.
Tesney took a looking-glass from under her pillow and looked at herself.
"Tesney has come back again," she said. "This is her face. This is her hair. Tesney has come back again." Then turning to the wasting child at her side, she said: "Don't cry, little rascal. You are a George, like your father. Little fool, don't cry. Night will soon come. You may go then. Cry, cry, little George! Stop! Stop!"
Tesney fell asleep. After several hours she was awakened by the crying of her baby. It was night. She took the baby in her arms and stole softly out of the house in her bare feet. She went straight to George's grave and sat down upon it.
"Little rascal," said she to the baby, "your father is in the ground and can't steal me any more. Agnes can't follow me. You must not be a big George. How you are growing! Stop! I'll hold your legs and arms. Stop! You won't? You must!"
She dug a hole in the top of the grave with her hands. She placed the baby in it, and covered it as well as she could. She then sat on a stump nearby and said not a word for several minutes. Tesney, sitting there, paid no heed to the rising wind, nor the distant flash of the lightning. Presently it thundered. She arose, put her hand to her ear, like one at a telephone, and waited. It thundered again. She leaned to listen. There was more lightning.
"My name?" asked she. "It is Tesney." There were renewed thunder and lightning. "My baby?" asked she. "I sent it up. Is it there?" Again it thundered, again the lightning flashed. "It is not there?" she asked. "I must come with it? All right! Welcome!" She ran to the grave and uncovered the baby. It kicked feebly and gave a faint cry. "I knew you were still here," she said. "The Voice of the Clouds said so." A terrible storm was breaking. "Listen, little rascal: We go together. Listen! The Voice is coming. We go! We go!"