With a cry, Dora turned and threw herself on the bed, and with her face hidden in a pillow she burst into dry sobs.
“Make her tell you the whole thing,” Mrs. Chumley spoke up, as she stood in the doorway. “Have it out of her, and be done with it; that's the course I took.”
Mrs. Barry turned upon her, but no anger or resentment over the intrusion stirred the dregs of her despair. A faint shock came to her with the thought that now all Stafford would know the truth, but it was followed by the realization that, after all, concealment would not lessen in any degree the horror of the disaster.
“Come away!” she heard herself imploring the gossip. “Let her alone! I won't have folks bothering her. She's got enough to bear as it is, without having people prying. Come away, come away!”
Mrs. Chumley suffered herself to be led to the outer door.
“All right. I came over to return the cup of sugar you lent me; I left it in the kitchen. I am much obliged, and I'm as sorry for you as one woman could be for another. Good-night.”
Mrs. Barry went to the supper-table, and, as it was growing dark, she lighted a lamp. She proceeded to wash and dry and put away the dishes. No one would have suspected that such a deadening blow had been dealt her to have looked in on her at this moment, as she moved dumbly about the room, her head and face hidden by the gingham sunbonnet she had put on. It was a badge of humility—a thing she vaguely fancied hid her maternal shame from eyes which she already felt prying.
Her task finished, she stood for a moment hesitatingly; then she blew out the lamp and crept softly to the door of her daughter's room. Bending her head, she listened at the keyhole. No sound came to her ears, and she softly lifted the latch and went in. Dora still lay on the bed, her arms clutching the pillow, her face out of view in the darkened room.
“Darling, I haven't come to scold you, don't think that,” the old woman said, most tenderly, as she sat down on the edge of the bed and took her daughter's tear-damp hand. “This calamity has fallen on both of us, just as the death of your dear father did so far away from home, and just as many other hard things have come to us. I shall stand by you through it all. It is not the first time a poor young girl has been misled. Nothing is left for us but to do our duty to the best of our ability in the sight of Heaven. I shall not press you to tell me a thing, either. My knowing particulars wouldn't better matters at all. It is done, and that is enough. Now, go to sleep, baby girl, and don't give way to despair. Good-night.”
Dora sat up, extended her arms, and for a moment the two remained locked in a tight, sobbing embrace. Neither spoke after that. Tenderly releasing her daughter's twining arms, Mrs. Barry went out and softly closed the door. In her own room, in utter darkness, she undressed. Before retiring, and with the sunbonnet still on her head, she knelt beside a chair in the room and started to pray, but somehow the needed words failed to come. Prayer is born in hope in some sort of faith, at least, but this lone widow, brave as her front appeared, had neither.