“Oh, where is it now, and what was its fate?” she kept whispering to herself, and once, as Gertie bent over her to bathe her head, she said, “Are you she,—the girl, the child, you know?”
“No, I am only Gertie; try to sleep and not talk any more to-night. You will be better in the morning and can tell Mrs. Schuyler,” Gertie said, feeling intuitively that Edith was the person concerned in the secret troubling the guilty woman so much.
She was sure of it when Mrs. Barrett answered:
“Yes, I must tell her. I must. Heaven give me strength to do it.”
Perhaps this was the first genuine prayer she had ever made, and as if already better for it she became more quiet and slept sweetly till the dawn of the morning, when Edith came to see how she had passed the night and relieve Gertie of her watch.
“Go to bed now, child,” she said, “and I will see that you are not called till lunch. You must be very tired.”
Gertie obeyed, and going to her own room, the adjoining one, was soon in a deep sleep, while Edith took her place by Mrs. Barrett’s bedside.
CHAPTER LI.
THE STORM BURSTS.
“Are you cold?” Edith asked, as she saw how her mother trembled, and taking one of the hands which lay outside the bed, she was going to chafe and rub it, when her mother snatched it away, and raising herself upright, cried out: