On the doorstep stood the shivering figure of a girl, clad only in her night-dress. She was shivering with excitement, not chill.
"Mrs. Slawson," she managed to bring out, before words became impossible, drowned in the torrent of her tears and sobbing.
Martha placed a motherly hand about the frail shoulders.
"Come now, come now! Don't cry like that. You'll shake yourself to pieces. I don't know what's the matter, but it'll be all right, anyhow, never fear. You're Ellen Hinckley, ain't you? I think I seen you a couple o' times at church."
As Martha talked, she drew her visitor into the house, automatically locked and bolted the door, and settled the girl in Sam's chair in the sitting-room.
The moonlight, streaming in through the windows, made the place almost as light as day, but for some purpose of her own, Martha was about to strike a match, when Ellen Hinckley stopped her with a quick cry.
"No, no! Don't do it! I've run away. I've left my mother's. My stepfather'll follow me when he finds I'm gone."
She drew a long painful breath, then panted out her story in short, labored gasps.
"I've never had a home. You mayn't believe it, but mother don't care a scrap about me, except for the work I can do. I've tried and tried for years to bear it, but it's got to be too hard. I can't live that way any longer. You know,—Mr. Wedall——?"
Martha nodded. "The pasture?"