I took them in my hands, with the same feeling that I would have done a tress of Mary's hair, or a fragment that she had handled. I think Miss Axtell divined this feeling; for she cautiously opened the door leading into her brother's room, and finding that he was not there, she bade me "come and see." It was Mary's portrait that once more I looked upon; framed in a wreath of the trailing-arbutus, it was hanging just where he could look at it at night, as I my strange tower-key.
We went back. Miss Axtell closed the sash; she was looking weary and pale. I was afraid she would suffer harm from the continued recital. She said "No," to my fear,—that "it must all be spoken now, once, and that forever,"—and I listened unto the story's end.
"One year had passed since Alice's death before Abraham's coming. Another had almost fled before the eventful time when I began to feel the weight of my cross. I know not how it came to Abraham's knowledge that Bernard McKey felt in his soul my presence. I only know that he came home one night, with a storm of rage whitening his lips and furrowing his forehead. He came up here, where I was sitting. I had watched his figure coming through tree-openings from Doctor Percival's house, and mingled with the memories of the fair young girl whom I had seen dead by lightning were fears for Mary Percival. For several days she had been ill, and I knew that Abraham felt anxious; therefore I did not wonder at his hasty coming in and instant seeking of me. He came quite close. He wound his face in between me and the darkening sky; he whispered hoarsely,—
"'Do you care for him?'
"'What is it, Abraham?' I asked, startled by his words and manner, but with not the faintest idea of the meaning entering in with his words.
"'Bernard McKey, is he anything to you?'
"'You've no right to question me thus,' I said.
"'And you will not answer me?'
"'I will not, Abraham.'
"The next morning Abraham was gone. He had not told me of his intended absence. He had only left a note, stating the time of his return.