"Will you go back to sleep?" she asked of me, before I could find time to make the same request of her.
"No,—I came here for you. Where are you going?"
"In there"; and she pointed to the room where I had seen the doctor and Katie go,—where she who was dead lay.
"Oh, come back! please do! that is no place for you"; and I endeavored to turn her steps.
"It is well that you say it. She's in there; perhaps she isn't dead. Such things have been. It was sudden, you know. Let me go."
I held her with all the strength I had.
"Leave me to myself. I'm going to tell her,—to tell her now. She'll hear me better than to-morrow; they'll have a fathom of earth over her heart then: that will be deeper than all that love of Abraham which covered up her heart from me."
What could I do? Despite my holding arms, she was gaining toward that fatal door, and the light was very dim. I called Katie three times, Miss Axtell still getting near to that I dreaded.
I heard a door open. I looked back, and saw Mr. Axtell coming from the library. He came quickly along the hall, arrested his sister's progress, and said gently, as twice he had spoken before,—
"Lettie, where are you going?"