"I will go and help him, if you don't mind being left"; and he looked inquiringly.
"There's no danger. I shall not fall asleep," I said.
"She's harmless now, poor child! If we can only get her back safely!" And with these words he left me again.
Sophie came up soon, quite fearless now. She brought a variety of comforting things, among them a pillow. Miss Axtell was too much exhausted to open her eyes, or speak. I thought two or three times that she had ceased to breathe. What if she should die here? They came. She was lifted up, and borne down to the carriage, that waited outside the graveyard. Helpless ones are carried in often: never before (it might be) had one been taken thence. And still the village-people seemed to be buried in rest.
Sophie and I walked on, whilst slowly the carriage proceeded to the gable-roofed, high-chimneyed house, that arose, well defined and clear, in the early sunlight. Smoke was rising from the kitchen-fire. Sophie and I went in, just as the carriage stopped. She waited to receive the invalid, whilst I went up to see if the absence had been discovered. It was but little more than an hour since Mr. Axtell and I had gone out. Evidently there had been no visitors. The wood that had been put on the fire before I left had gone down into glowing coals that looked warm and inviting. I kneeled and stirred them to a brighter glow, and put on more wood, my fingers very stiff the while. I drew back the curtains from the bed, smoothed the pillows, and the disorder occasioned by our hasty exodus, and went down. Aaron and Mr. Axtell had carried the poor invalid to the library, and laid her upon the sofa there, but it was very cold. The fire was not yet built.
There was a sound of some one coming from the kitchen-way. Mr. Axtell looked at me. "You know how to keep a secret," he said, and motioned me in the direction whence came the sound, I hurried out, closing the door, and met Katie running up to know "what had happened?"
I sent her back on some slight pretext, and followed whither she went. I heard the cook mumblingly scolding about "noises in the night, dogs barking and doors shutting, she knew; such a house as it was, with people dying, getting sick, and putting every sort of a bothersome dream into a quiet body's head, that wanted to rest, just as she worked, like a Christian." And all the while she went on making preparations for a future breakfast.
"What was 't now that ye heard? Kate, you're easy enough at hearing o' noises in the broad daylight: I wish 't ye would be as harksome at night."
"Hush, Cooky!" said Katie; "Miss Percival is here."
I went up to Cooky and soothed her, told her that I had heard the dog barking too, and that I thought that I did hear something like the shutting of a door in the night. Cooky rewarded my efforts at sympathy by expressing gladness "that there was one sensible person in the house that had ears fit for Christian purposes."