As the fever increased, and Uncle Joseph grew more and more delirious his cries for Sarah were heartrending, making Jessie weep bitterly as she said to Maddy:
“If I knew where this Sarah was I’d go miles on foot to find her and bring her to him.”
Something like this Jessie said to her mother when she went for a day to Aikenside, asking her in conclusion if she thought Sarah would go.
“Perhaps,” and Agnes brushed abstractedly her long, flowing hair, winding it around her jeweled fingers, and then letting the soft curls fall across her snowy arms.
“Where do you suppose she is?” was Jessie’s next question, but if Agnes knew, she did not answer, except by reminding her little daughter that it was past her bedtime.
The next morning Agnes’ eyes were very red, as if she had been wakeful the entire night, while her white face fully warranted the headache she professed to have.
“Jessie,” she said, as they sat together at their breakfast, “I am going to Honedale to-day, going to see Maddy, and shall leave you here, as I do not care to have us both absent.”
Jessie demurred a little at first, but finally yielded, wondering what had prompted this visit to the cottage. Maddy wondered so, too, as from the window she saw Agnes instead of Jessie alighting from the carriage, and was conscious of a thrill of gratification that Agnes would have come to see her. But Agnes’ business concerned the sick man, poor Uncle Joseph, who was sleeping when she came, and so did not hear her voice as in the tidy kitchen she talked to Maddy, appearing extremely agitated, and flashing her eyes rapidly from one part of the room to another, resting now upon the tinware hung upon the wall and now upon the gourd swimming in the water pail standing in the old-fashioned sink, with the wooden spout, directly over the pile of stones covering the drain. These things were familiar to the proud woman; she had seen them before, and the sight of them now brought to her a most remorseful regret for the past, while her heart ached cruelly as she wished she had never crossed that threshold, or crossing it had never brought ruin to one of its inmates. Agnes was not the same woman whom we first knew. All hope of the doctor had long since been given up, and as Jessie grew older the mother nature was stronger within her, subduing her selfishness, and making her far more gentle and considerate for others than she had been before. To Maddy she was exceedingly kind, and never more so in manner than now, when they sat talking together in the humble kitchen at the cottage.
“You look tired and sick,” she said. “Your cares have been too much for one not yet strong. Let me sit by him till he wakes, and you go up to bed.”
Very gladly Maddy accepted the offered relief, and utterly worn out with her constant vigils, she was soon sleeping soundly in her own room, while Flora, in the little shed, or back room of the house, was busy with her ironing. Thus there was none to follow Agnes as she went slowly into the sick-room where Uncle Joseph lay, his thin face upturned to the light, and his lips occasionally moving as he muttered in his sleep. There was a strange contrast between that wasted imbecile and that proud, queenly woman, but she could remember a time when the superiority was all upon his side, a time when in her childish estimation he was the embodiment of every manly beauty, and the knowledge that he loved her, his sister’s little hired girl, filled her with pride and vanity. A great change had come to them both since those days, and Agnes, watching him and smothering back the cry of pain which arose to her lips at sight of him, felt that for the fearful change in him she was answerable. Intellectual, talented, admired and sought by all he had been once; he was a mere wreck now, and Agnes’ breath came in short, quick gasps, as glancing furtively around to see that no one was near, she laid her hand upon his forehead, and parting his thin hair, said, pityingly: “Poor Joseph.”