"Who are you? What are you doing here? My mother is sleeping; you will waken her."
Agnes went forward instantly, threw her arms round the girl, saying:
"Ann, do you not know me?"
"Know you!" repeated Ann. "Is it Agnes or her spirit? Surely in her body she would not come here, and yet how I have longed for her!"
"Why should I not come, if you are here?" said Agnes.
"You must go," said Ann. "Go quickly! I cannot let you in; I dare not. My mother came home an hour ago. All day and all night she has been in the prison. Do you know what I have done? I have taken her clothes and burnt them, they were so foul. I stood for hours waiting for her outside the gates, and when she came forth she dropped down like one dead, and I carried her home in my arms. If you could see her, she is almost a skeleton! Ah me! what will the end be?" And, covering her face with her hands, she wept.
"I will see her," said Patience. "We have come here to help you, Ann, and we will help you, have no fear, child. Stay with Martha, Agnes. Now, Ann, show me the way."
Ann hesitated. "You do not understand," she said.
"Then it is time I did," answered Patience. "Take me to your mother."
As she spoke she looked at Ann. Could this be the same girl she had known so fresh and blooming? She seemed to have grown taller, and her face was sallow and thin; she might have been any age, she looked so worn and anxious. She was scrupulously neat in a linen gown, with a white apron and a muslin kerchief folded across her bosom; over her head she wore a sort of linen wrapper, which hid all her hair, leaving only a small band on either side of her forehead. She had adopted this dress because she was able thus to keep herself clean amidst so much foulness.