"But what shall I do when I get up?" Margaret asked, too dazed to think for herself. She took off her hat as she spoke and put it on the table. Towsey lifted it gently and hid it in the settle where she kept her own things.
"As I go into the room you can slip into the cupboard outside the door—you'll find it open—and hide among the things hanging up. I'll try and get Hannah down and keep her to eat a bit of supper; then, perhaps, you could steal in and look at her for a moment without any one knowing you are there."
"But if it did her harm—if it excited her?"
"It won't," said Towsey, firmly; "it'll make her happy before she goes. It would be terrible if she died without seeing you or her husband, when she's waiting and longing for you both that badly she can scarce breathe."
"Let us go at once," whispered Margaret.
They crept out of the kitchen together, Margaret's hand on Towsey's shoulder. The tears came into the old woman's eyes as they crossed the threshold. "I nursed you a lot of times when you were a baby," she whispered; "and now you are such a beauty—she said it," and she nodded upward, "only yesterday."
They went along the passage and stopped near the foot of the stairs that were between the kitchen door and the door of the best parlor. They could hear Hannah's voice. She was sitting by her mother's bedside reading the Bible. Towsey went up a few steps and stopped and craned her neck, and came back.
"The door's nearly to," she whispered. "Hannah won't see."
Margaret softly followed Towsey up-stairs, keeping close to the wall till she reached the landing, then she slipped into the cupboard that was next her mother's room. She remembered how she had looked into it the day that Tom Carringford came to the farm four months ago; her mother's long cloak and best dress had been hanging there then, and they were there now. Margaret knew the feel of them so well—it gave her a thrill to touch them. It was quite dark within the cupboard; even if the door were open and Hannah passed, she would not be likely to see her. She was afraid to move the door lest it should be noticed, but she hid a little way behind it. Towsey, seeing she was safe, looked in at Hannah, who, perhaps, made some sign to her, for she went softly down to the kitchen again. Then, as Margaret stood hidden and listening, out of her mother's bedroom door there came still the sound of Hannah reading of love and mercy; but her voice told that neither had entered her own heart.
Presently Mrs. Vincent asked feebly, "Has any one come, Hannah?"