“‘They will take both of us, if either. I shall not leave you and your friends will soon know of it.’
“Thus reassured, Anna grew more calm, and waited till the ship was fast at the landing and the passengers free to leave. There was no officer there, no telegram, and our party took the first train which left next morning on the Harlem Road for Millfield. A telegram, however, had preceded them, and the whole town was in a state of wild excitement when it was known that Anna was coming back, and why. Up to this time but little had been said of Fred’s departure for Europe, and though there were surmises of something wrong, nothing definite was known until the telegram was received, when the story came out and set the town on fire. Everybody told everybody else, so that long before the train was due the history of Anna’s life in France had been told a thousand times, and had Ernest Haverleigh then appeared in the streets he would assuredly have been torn in pieces by the crowd which surged toward the depot long before the train was due. Everybody was there; those who had known Anna in her girlhood and those who had not, the new-comers who only knew her story and waited for a glimpse of her. Oh, how white, and frightened, and wild she looked when at last she came and stepped upon the platform. Fred’s arm was around her, and behind her came Madame Verwest, carrying the child, which slept soundly all through the exciting scene.
“‘Mother—where’s mother?’ the pallid lips asked as Anna’s feet touched the ground, and then her mother’s arms were round her, and the tired head dropped on the maternal bosom with a low pitiful cry, and it was whispered in the crowd that she had fainted.
They took her home to the low red house, and laid her in the little room she used to occupy, and which she once had so despised. It seemed like heaven to her now, as she sank down among the snowy pillows, and felt the sweet breath of the summer air, laden with the perfume of the new-mown hay, and the lilies of which she had talked so much to Madame Verwest.
“‘Oh, mother, Mary, I am so glad,’ she said, as she saw them bending over her, and felt that she was safe. ‘No one can get me here. You’ll never let me go, for he will come after me; he is coming now,’ and with a shudder she drew the sheet over her face as if to hide herself from the dreaded husband coming to take her away.
“After that Anna knew no more of what was passing about her for days, and even weeks. Nature had borne all it could, and she lay almost motionless, and utterly unconscious of everything. But never sure was queen tended with more care than she for whom everybody cared, and whose room was filled with tokens of remembrance, flowers and fruit, and such masses of white lilies, for these had been her favorites, and every school-boy in town considered it an honor to wade into the pond, knee-deep, and even imperil his life to secure the fragrant blossoms.
“From the first Madame Verwest was a puzzle to all, and a very little in the way. It is true she was the nurse who took the entire charge of the baby, and who, more than any one else, seemed to understand and know what to do for Anna. But still she was in the way—a stranger, who had not been expected, but whose only fault seemed to be that she stared too much at Mrs. Strong and at the people in Millfield, especially the older inhabitants, and asked too many questions about them. It was a little strange, too, how fond she was of roaming about the town, and exploring it in all its parts. Sometimes, with the baby in her arms, she would leave the house in the morning, and not return again until dinner time, and Mrs. Strong had heard of her more than once in the graveyard, studying the old head-stones; and again down near the boat-house by the river, sitting apparently in deep thought upon the grass, with Anna’s baby sleeping on her lap. At first Mrs. Strong felt some natural anxiety for the safety of the child, but when she saw how it clung to Madame Verwest, and how devoted she seemed to be to its every movement, she came to trust her fully, and to forget all else in her great concern for her own child, who grew weaker and weaker every day, until to those who watched her so closely there seemed little hope that she could ever rally from the death-like stupor into which she had fallen. Nothing roused her to the least degree of consciousness or motion, except, indeed the mention of her husband’s name. As an experiment Madame Verwest bent over her and said:
“‘Ma petite, do you remember Monsieur Haverleigh of Chateau d’Or?’
“Then there was a quivering of the lids, and a shiver ran through Anna’s form, and she whispered faintly:
“‘Yes, yes, and he is coming; he is almost here, but don’t let him get me.’