A curve in the road brought her in sight of the house now devoted to hospital uses. It was a two-story farm-house, black with age, shutterless and forsaken-looking. Over it hung the cloud of a hideous crime. A few years before, the owner, led on by an insane passion, had murdered his aged wife in her bed. The sequel had been a man's life ended in prison, a girl's name blasted, a dishonored family, a forsaken homestead,—for the son, to whom the property had fallen, had gone away, leaving no trace behind him. It had stood for years as the murderer had left it; its contents had been untouched by human hands; the hay had rotted in the barn; the fields were running waste. The very road itself was avoided, and the old wheel-ruts were almost effaced by grass and weeds. Swallows had possessed themselves of the cold, smokeless chimneys and sunken, mossy eaves; vagrant cats prowled about the moldering mows and empty mangers. The old well-sweep pointed like a gaunt, rigid finger toward heaven. The little strips of flower-beds beneath the front windows were choked with grass, but the red roses and pinks and columbines which the old woman had loved, still grew and bloomed in their season, and cast their petals about the sunken door-stone, and over the crooked path and neglected grass.
There were no flowers now,—only drifting masses of wet brown leaves. The setting sun had just turned the windows into sheets of blood, and down in the pasture could be seen the rough clods of several new-made graves. The silence was absolute. Faint columns of smoke, rising from the crumbling chimneys, were the only signs of human presence.
A tremor shook the girl from head to foot, and she ceased walking. After all, she was young and strong, and the world was wide; life might hold something of sweetness for her yet. It was not too late. She half turned,—but it was only for a moment, and her feet were on the door-step, and her hand on the latch.
She turned a last look upon the outer world,—the bare fields, the leafless woods, the blue hills, the fading sky. A desperate yearning toward it all made her stretch out her hands as if to draw it nearer for a last farewell. Then from within came the piteous cry of a sick child, and she raised the latch softly and entered the house. The air of the hall smote her like a heavy hand, coming as she did from the cool outer air; but guided by the cry, which still continued, she groped her way up the bare, worn stairs, pushed open a door, and entered.
The child's voice covered the sound of her entrance and, sickened by the foul air, she had leaned for some moments against the wall before Widow Gatchell, who was holding the child across her knee, turned and saw her. The old woman's hard, brown features stiffened with surprise, her lips parted without sound.
"I have come to help you," said Lilly, putting down her satchel and coming forward.
"Who sent ye?" the widow asked, shortly.
"Nobody. I offered my services, but Dr. Starkey refused to let me come. I knew you would not send me away if I once got here, and so I came."
"What was folks thinkin' of to let ye come?" asked the old woman again.