“While I was reading my letters, my father, armed with his cowhide, came in. I suppose he had seen my light shining through my window, though I always curtained it carefully; and no doubt mother had told him of my going to the village. He seized my letters, and read enough to know they were from a lover. He commanded me to tell him who wrote them, but I was angry at the idea of his coming to whip me like a child, when I was almost sixteen years old. At my refusal, he dragged me from my bed in my chemise and whipped me cruelly. It is two weeks ago, and you can see the marks on me yet. My little sister, who slept with me, woke and screamed, ‘Don’t kill Annie! Father, father, don’t kill Annie!’ At which he laid the whip over her and forced her into silence. I was so outraged that I boldly told him I wished he were burning in the hell he always told me I should go to. I told him to kill me—that it was all I asked of such an inhuman father. This only made him more angry and his blows the harder. Finding I would not tell him who wrote my letters, he left me, commending me to the mercy of God. I told him I despised the God that could be pleased with such as he. He said it was his duty to punish me until he ‘broke my will,’ and that the next morning he should come again.
“When the house was silent—I suppose two hours or so after he left—I rose, and taking some matches, for he had carried my lamp away, I groped my way down into the parlor, where my mother kept her purse hidden in a chest of drawers. I stole two dollars, half of all poor mother had secreted from my father.”
For some time Annie could not go on. The doctor felt her pulse, and giving her some wine, allowed her to finish.
“I then went back, packed up some things in a paper bundle, and waited until I thought it must be near dawn; and then I kissed my little sister and stole out of the house. I walked five miles to the next town, where the stage to this place passes through. The stage fare was just two dollars, and that was all I had. At noon the stage stopped at a hotel, and all the passengers, except a woman and her child, got out. She asked me some questions, and gave me some bread and meat from her basket. When I got here, and found the printing-office, George was gone, and there was no one but a boy, who was washing the ink from his hands at a sink. He could not tell me where George lived, and I was ashamed to go anywhere to inquire for him. I was ashamed of my bundle, of my clothes, of everything, and I was ready to sink with my misery. I knew not what to do; but I could not stand in the street; so I walked away from the village, crying bitterly under my old green vail all the time. I went into a grove, which I have found since was Mr. Kendrick’s, and sat down in a little summer-house and cried. I stayed there all night, and slept a good deal, for it was not a very cold night; but in the morning I felt cold and faint. Then I reflected that I could not tell George I had stayed all night in the woods, like a vagabond, and the stage, by which only I could have come, did not arrive except at night; so I wandered to and from this grove all day. Oh, the long, wretched hours! You can imagine them, but I cannot describe them by words.
“I found George. He was greatly surprised to see me, but not glad, I knew. He walked across the Common with me, and I told him my story, or some of it; told him I would find work. He took me to a hotel, the cheapest, as I wished him to, and there left me to another night of misery. The next evening he called, and there was something of his old manner, in his words to me. He thought I could not get work, and that I had better go home. That was dreadful—from him too. The next day, and for over a week, I tried to get work. I asked the landlord to take me as a chamber-maid—everything failed, and as I could not pay my board, one evening, on going to my room, I found my few things at the door, and the door locked. I knew not what to do, and not caring if I died or lived, I walked out to the Common and sat down in the cold. While I was there, a well-dressed girl spoke to me kindly, and asked me why I cried. I told her in a few words, and she took me home with her, and was very kind to me. I did not know what kind of a house it was. Old Mrs. Torbit was a horrid woman, and laughed at me when I wished to work for her. I will not say what she told me, but I did not listen to her. I was there only one night and the next day. The second evening, as I was walking down the stairs, George Storrs came out of the parlor. He looked at me with horror, and then rushed out of the house. I flew to my room, and throwing on my shawl and hat, rushed out and followed him, and overtook him as he was crossing the bridge. I seized his arm in despair, but he flung me off with reproaches, because I had not gone home as he advised me. He would not believe I was innocent of bad acts in that house, and while I was talking to him even, he left me without one word. Then I knew beyond a doubt that he did not love me. He could be cold and cruel too. My suffering, my tears, could not affect him, and then I determined to go out of this terrible world. I stood there on the bridge, saying I know not what, but loud enough I thought for the whole village to hear me. O God! how I pitied myself. ‘Poor Annie! Poor Annie!’ I cried many times, and then I threw myself into the cold river. I remember the icy chill, the awful strangling, which seemed to last so long, and then a terrible ringing in my ears, and I thought I was dying without pain. * * That is all, dear good friends. The rest you know.”
The “dear good friends” then comforted her in every way they knew. Susie and Clara, with tears, kissed her tenderly, and assured her they would not fail her.
“Oh! if some good angel had sent me here to you!” said Annie. “If I had only known anybody could help poor Annie, and feel for her as you do, I should have been spared so much! See, I am worn to a skeleton, almost, and when I left home I was not thin at all. Thank God! for the friends he has sent me.”
“Dear girl,” said the doctor, with emotion, “I trust all your sorrows are over. To-morrow I shall have something to tell you.” And with this the doctor left her.
CHAPTER XXXI.
INTO A BETTER WORLD.
The next morning, after hearing Annie Gilder’s story, the doctor sent a written message to George Storrs, at his boarding-place. As it was Sunday, the young man was free, waited on the doctor immediately, and was shown into his sanctum. Dr. Forest was pleased to see a fresh-complexioned, naissant-moustached, handsome young fellow, very diffident in the presence of the popular physician. The doctor was in his dressing-gown, and put the young man at ease, by asking permission to continue smoking his pipe.