For a moment Hagar let her head repose upon the bosom of her child, then murmuring softly, "It will never lie there again," she arose, and, confronting Maggie, said, "Is it love which makes you so happy?"
"Yes, Hagar, love," answered Margaret, the deep blushes stealing over her glowing face.
"And is it your intention to marry the man you love?" continued Hagar, thinking only of Henry Warner, while Margaret, thinking only of Arthur Carrollton, replied, "If he will marry me, I shall most surely marry him."
"It is enough. I must tell her," whispered Hagar; while Maggie asked,
"Tell me what?"
For a moment the wild eyes fastened themselves upon her with a look of yearning anguish, and then Hagar answered slowly, "Tell you what you've often wished to know—my secret!" the last word dropping from her lips more like a warning hiss than like a human sound. It was long since Maggie had teased for the secret, so absorbed had she been in other matters, but now that there was a prospect of knowing it her curiosity was reawakened, and while her eyes glistened with expectation, she said, "Yes, tell it to me, Hagar, and then I'll tell you mine;" and all over her beautiful face there shone a joyous light as she thought how Hagar, who had once pronounced Henry Warner unworthy, would rejoice in her new love.
"Not here, Maggie—not here in this room can I tell you," said old Hagar; "but out in the open air, where my breath will come more freely;" and, leading the way, she hobbled to the mossy bank where Maggie had sat with Arthur Carrollton on the morning of his departure for Montreal.
Here she sat down, while Maggie threw herself upon the damp ground at her feet, her face lighted with eager curiosity and her lustrous eyes bright as stars with excitement. For a moment Hagar bent forward, and, folding her hands one above the other, laid them upon the head of the young girl as if to gather strength for what she was to say. But all in vain; for when she essayed to speak her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth, and her lips gave forth unmeaning sounds.
"It must be something terrible to affect her so," thought Maggie, and, taking the bony hands between her own, she said, "I would not tell it, Hagar; I do not wish to hear."
The voice aroused the half-fainting woman, and, withdrawing her hand from Maggie's grasp, she replied, "Turn away your face, Margaret Miller, so I cannot see the hatred settling over it, when I tell you what I must."
"Certainly; my back if you prefer it," answered Maggie, half playfully; and turning round she leaned her head against the feeble knees of Hagar.