A slight knock, and then a stealthy footstep, roused the negro, and she started up and looked about her. In the dim moonlight she saw Mary Ray standing at her bedside, with her finger on her lips, and herself setting the example in every motionless limb, of the silence she imposed.
Mary took Daph by the hand, and led her into the hall, and then said in a whisper,
“I could not go without bidding you good-bye, you have always been so kind to me?”
Daph looked in wonder at the slender young girl, wrapped in her shawl, and carrying a small bundle in her hand.
“Where is you going, Mary?” she said, anxiously; “it’s no good is takin’ you from home at this time of night.”
“I can bear it no longer,” said Mary, with quiet determination; “I have never had a home, and now I am going to look for one for myself. Mother may find out that, if I am ‘only a girl,’ she will miss me. Good-bye, Daph. I should like to kiss the children once more, but I am afraid I should wake them. Good-bye!” and the young girl shook the hand of her humble friend.
The hand she had given was not so easily released; it was held gently but firmly as if in a vice.
“Ise wont let you go—go straight to black sin,” said Daph, earnestly; “you’s a leavin’ the mother the great Lord gave you; you’s a leavin’ the home the great Lord put you in, and there’s black sin a waitin’ outside for you, if you go so young and lone; Ise will not let you go!”
“I cannot bear it any longer,” said Mary, and she sank down on the floor, and wiped away her fast-flowing tears.
Mary had of late had a hard life, indeed. Mrs. Ray had been slowly coming to a knowledge of herself, and this knowledge, instead of bringing repentance and reformation, had made her doubly unreasonable and irritable, and on Mary she had vented all her ill-humor.