The lights grew more brilliant, but she could scarcely move on toward them. Her thoughts grew confused, strange visions thronged her mind, vivid colors danced before her eyes, sweet music charmed her senses. She was growing less weary; a pleasant warmth comforted her, and her eyelids were heavy with sleep as she toiled on toward the goal, reached it, and sank down between an evergreen shrub and one of the windows of the Merryman farmhouse.
Unconscious of the tragedy transpiring without, the bride, arrayed in a fleecy robe of white, as were her attendants grouped about the piano, was singing, when at the window appeared the wanderer for the second time that evening, bearing in his arms the unconscious form of the little girl.
“She is dead,” he murmured in a dazed, helpless way, as he stepped through the window which Mr. Merryman opened for him; “she was in the cold snow!”
“She may be,” said Dr. Lattinger, coming quickly toward them. “We must take her to a cool room and make efforts to restore her.”
Tear-dimmed eyes gazed upon the pallid face, loving arms were extended to bear her where Mrs. Merryman would direct, when Diana Strong, hearing the subdued exclamations of surprise and pity, came to the parlor door and glanced in.
“It is Hilda!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands and turning pale with emotion. “What could have driven her out this wintry night?”
Although a new anxiety had come to Mrs. Merryman, she experienced relief in again seeing the wanderer, and while Dr. and Mrs. Lattinger, Mrs. Courtney and Diana were doing all in their power to restore the little girl, she took him to the kitchen and soothed her tried conscience by seeing that he was made comfortable with light and warmth and good food at the table with Perry.
“I knows him,” remarked Mose, who with Kitty was enjoying his supper at a table in another corner of the kitchen. “I done seen him many a time on the road.”
“You knows a heap of people, Mose, that don’t knows you,” commented his grandmother.
“Where was the little girl when you found her?” Mrs. Merryman asked Archie, while Diana was pouring his coffee.