Trembling and dazed, Henrietta peered from one to the other. Mistress of herself two minutes before, she was now on the verge of hysteria, and controlled herself with an effort.
“Oh!” she cried. “Oh! thank God you’ve come! Thank God you’ve come! I thought you had left me.”
She was thankful—oh, she was thankful; though these were no rescuers, but the two who had consigned her to that horrible place. Bess raised the lanthorn so that its light fell on the girl’s haggard, twitching face.
“We could not come before,” she said, with something like pity in her tone. “That’s all.”
“All!” Henrietta gasped. “All! Oh, I thought you had left me! I thought you had left me!”
Bess considered her, and there was beyond doubt something like softening in the girl’s dark face. But her tone remained ironical.
“You didn’t,” she said, “much fancy your bedroom, I guess?”
Henrietta’s teeth chattered.
“Oh, God forgive you!” she cried. “I thought you had left me! I thought you’d left me!”
“It was your own folks’ fault,” Bess retorted. “They’ve never had their eyes off the blessed house, one or another of them, from dawn to dark! We could not come. But now here’s food, and plenty!” raising the light. “How’s the child?”