The patient had fallen asleep, Rachel watching at her side.
A glance showed Mildred the paper folded and laid upon the table. She opened it cautiously, found the article she sought and read it.
"A case of lynching occurred in one of the southern counties of Texas, about two weeks ago. A man named Joseph White, said to be from one of the Northern States, suspected of horse stealing, was taken by a posse of some forty armed men, carried into the woods and hung. He was given ten minutes to prepare for death; died bravely, protesting his innocence to the last; but of course nobody believed him, as the proof against him was strong."
Sick and faint with horror, Mildred laid down the paper and dropped, shuddering, into a chair. Oh, this was worse than all! If he was that poor woman's husband, and she loved him, no wonder news so dreadful, and coming at such a time as this, should bring her down to the very gates of death.
The girlish heart was filled with a great compassion for the poor stricken creature, a great longing to comfort her in her grief and desolation.
"She will not live, she cannot," she whispered to herself; "I should not wish to were I in her place; for oh, it is so horrible, so horrible! How can men be such savages as to take human life to atone for the loss of an animal! and that perhaps the life of an innocent man?"
"I should be loath to assume your responsibility in this matter," remarked Mr. Dinsmore to his wife, as Mildred left them lingering over their dessert.
"Why?" she demanded, bridling; "did I cause the ruin of her brother or the poverty of the family?"
"You seem to have added to that last burden; thus supplying the one drop that makes the cup overflow."
"I only did my duty to my children," she retorted angrily.