“Yes, I was ashamed,” said Jessy, shivering.
“And no wonder. Why did you go?”
Jessy gave a despairing sigh. Leaving that question in abeyance, Susan returned to the former one.
“If you did not mean to come home, what brought you down here at all?”
“It didn’t matter where I went. And my heart was yearning for a look at the old place—and so I came.”
“And if we had not found you under the church wall—and we never should but for Johnny Ludlow’s running out to get some string—where should you have gone, pray?”
“Crawled under some haystack, and let the cold and hunger kill me.”
“Don’t be a simpleton,” reproved Susan.
“I wish it had been so,” returned Jessy. “I’d rather be dying there in quiet. Oh, Susan, I am ill; I am indeed! Let me be at peace!”
The appeal shut up Susan Page. She did not want to be too hard upon her.