Jane Hemingway was not sleeping; she had no hope of a respite of that sort. She would have doubted that she ever could close her eyes in tranquillity till some settlement of the life-crushing matter was reached. What was to be done? Only one expedient had offered itself during her aimless walk to the store, where she purchased a spool of cotton thread she did not need, and during her slow return along the road and the further hours of solitude in her darkened chamber, and that expedient offered no balm for her gashed and torn pride. She could appeal to the law to protect her innocent daughter from the designing wiles of a woman of such a reputation as Ann Boyd bore, but, alas! even Ann might have foreseen that ruse and counted on its more deeply stirring Virginia's sympathies and adding to her faith. Why she had not at once denounced her child for her filial faithlessness she could not have explained, unless it was the superstitious dread of having Virginia's infidelity reconfirmed. Of course, she must fight. Yes, she'd have to do that to the end, although her shrewd enemy had already beaten her life-pulse dead in her veins and left her without a hope of adequate retaliation. Going to law meant also that it was her first public acknowledgment of her enemy's prowess, and it meant, too, the wide-spread and humiliating advertisement of the fact that Virginia had died to her and been born to the breast of her rival; but even that must be borne.
These morose reflections were broken, near midnight, by a step in the passage outside. The door was opened softly, and Virginia, in her night-robe, came in quietly and approached the bed.
"I know you are not asleep, mother," she said, tremulously. "I've heard you rolling and tossing ever since I went to bed."
Jane stared from her hot pillow for an instant, and then slowly propped herself up on her gaunt, quivering elbow. "You are not asleep either, it seems," she said, hollowly.
"No, I couldn't for thinking about you," Virginia replied, gently, as she sat down on the foot of the bed.
"You couldn't, huh! I say!" Jane sneered. "Huh, you! It's a pity about you!"
"I have reason to worry," Virginia said. "You know the doctors told you particularly not to get depressed and downhearted while you are recovering your strength."
"Huh! what do they mean by prescribing things that can't be reached under the sun? They are idiots to think I could have peace of mind after finding out what I did this morning. I once had a cancer in the flesh; I've got one now in my heart, where no knife on earth can reach it."
There was a pause. The eyes of the mother and daughter met in the half-darkness of the room. There was a lull in the whistling of the wind outside. Under the floor a hen with a brood of chickens was clucking uneasily and flapping her wings in the effort to keep her brood warm. Across the passage came the rasping sound of Sam's snoring, as unconscious of tragedy as he had been in his cradle, and yet its creeping shadow lay over his placid features, its bated breath filled the air he was breathing. Virginia leaned forward wonderingly, her lips parted and set in anxiety.
"You are thinking about the debt on the farm?" she ventured. "If that's it, mother, remember—"