Dorothy met the request, so humbly made, with heart-felt expressions of gratitude. She could not help thinking that Gilbert had acted selfishly, in deserting his parents; that it was a poor way of proving his love to her, by showing such a want of affection for them; but she crushed the ungracious thought, and inquired how Mrs. Rushmere had borne this heavy blow—ashamed of not having asked for her before.
"Alack, child, when she read the letter, she swoon'd dead away, an' when the neighbours brought her round, she grew stark staring mad, raving and crying, 'Gilly, Gilly, come back to your poor mother. Oh, my heart, my heart, it will break a' wanting my son.' It was awful to hear the like, an' she allers such a quiet creature. It was many days afore she grew calm. She went one morn, an' she fetched the big Bible, and went down upon her knees in the corner of the room, an' she cried an' crooned ow'r it for hours, an' would na' take a morsel o' any thing to eat or to drink. At last she gets up, and she clasps her hands thus—together—an' she looks at me wi' her old pleasant kind face,
"'Lawrence,' she says, 'God has comforted my poor sore heart, and given me his blessed peace. This trial is o' him. Let us kneel down together, an' pray that He may bless it to our souls.'
"An' I did pray, Dolly, as I never did before in my life, an' we found the word mighty to overcome grief.
"Then wife says, 'Larry,' she says to me, 'you must go an' bring our Dolly back. God gave her to us, an' you ha' clean forgotten the trust.'
"'It's never too late to repent,' says I. 'I will go for the little maid to-morrow evening, when I come from work.' What moved your heart, Dorothy, to come alone?"
Dorothy did not like to mention the scandal which had roused her indignation, lest it should increase the farmer's self-reproaches, which were heavy enough. She merely said, and it was the truth,
"That she was suddenly told of Gilbert's enlistment, and she could not believe it until further confirmation from them. That it was late when she left Barford's, but the night was so clear that she never apprehended any cause for alarm, that it must have been midnight when she fancied she saw the apparition on the heath, but since the sun had shone into her eyes she began to doubt the reality of the vision.
"She had been hard at work all day, and was greatly troubled in her mind when she started on her lonely walk. She might have sat down to rest and fallen asleep, and dreamt it, she no longer seemed to recall the circumstances very distinctly. The horrible phantasy had faded from her mind with the morning light, and she would try and think of it as a mental delusion.