“Nobody knows that—the body was never got—that is to say nobody knows where it's now lyin', snug enough too.”
“Ha!” thought the stranger, eying her furtively—“snug enough!—there's more knowledge where that came from. What do you mane by snug enough?” she asked abruptly.
“Mane!” replied the other, who at once perceived the force of the unguarded expression she had used;—“mane, why what could I mane, but that whoever did the deed, hid the body where very few would be likely to find it.”
Her companion now stood up, and approaching the prophet's wife, raised her hand, and said in a tone that was both startling and emphatic—
“I met you this day as you may think, by accident; but take my word for it, and, as sure as we must both account for our acts, it was the hand o' God that brought us together. I now look into your face, and I tell you that I see guilt and throuble there—ay, an' the dark work of a conscience that's gnawin' your heart both night and day.”
Whilst speaking, she held her face within about a foot of Nelly's, into which she looked with an expression so searching and dreadful in its penetration, that the other shrunk back, and felt for a moment as if subdued by a superior spirit. It was, however, only for a moment; the sense of her subjection passed away, and she resumed that hard and imperturbable manner, for which she had been all her life so remarkable, unless, like Etna and Vesuvius, she burst out of this seeming coldness into fire and passion. There, however, they stood looking sternly into each others' faces, as if each felt anxious that the other should quail before her gaze—the stranger, in order that her impressions might be confirmed, and the prophet's wife, that she should, by the force of her strong will, fling off those traces of inquietude which she knew very well were often too legible in her countenance.
“You are wrong,” said Nelly, “an' have only mistaken my face for a lookin'-glass. It was your own you saw, all it was your own you wor spaking of—for if ever I saw a face that publishes an ill-spent life on the part of its owner, yours is it.”
“Care an' sorrow I have had,” replied the other, “an' the sin that causes sorrow, I grant; but there's somethin' that's weighin' down your heart, an' that won't let you rest until you give it up. You needn't deny it, for you can't hide it—hard your eye is, but it's not clear, and I see that it quivers, and is unaisy before mine.”
“I said you're mistaken,” replied the other; “but even supposin' you wor not, how is it your business whether my mind is aisy or not? You won't have my sins to answer for.”
“I know that,” said the stranger; “and God sees my own account will be too long and too heavy, I doubt. I now beg of you, as you hope to meet judgment, to think of what I said. Look into your own heart, and it will tell you whether I am right or whether I am wrong. Consult your husband, and if he has any insight at all into futurity, he must tell you that, unless you clear your conscience, you'll have a hard death-bed of it.”