“Oh, I am very sorry, very sorry!” said Mrs. Vincent, in her turn taking the poor thin hand with an instinct of consolation. Susan’s name, thus introduced, went to the mother’s heart. She could have wept over the other mother thus complaining, moaning out her troubles in her compassionate ear.
“I left them in a safe place. I came home to fall into your son’s hands. He might have been sure, had it come to that, that no one should have suffered for me” said Mrs. Hilyard, with again a tone of bitterness. “What was my life worth, could any man suppose? And since then I have not heard a word—not a word—whether the child is still where I left her, or whether some of his people have found her—or whether she is ill—or whether—I know nothing, nothing! Have a little pity upon me, you innocent woman! I never asked pity, never sought sympathy before; but a woman can never tell what she may be brought to. I am brought down to the lowest depths. I cannot stand upright any longer,” she cried, with a wailing sigh. “I want somebody—somebody at least to give me a little comfort. Comfort! I remember,” she said, with one of those sudden changes of tone which bewildered Mrs. Vincent, “your son once spoke to me of getting comfort from those innocent young sermons of his. He knows a little better now; he does not sail over the surface now as he used to do in triumph. Life has gone hard with him, as with me and all of us. Tell him, if I get no news I will break my parole. I cannot help myself—a woman’s honour is not her word. I told him so. Say to your son—”
“My son? what have you to do with my son?” said Mrs. Vincent, with a sudden pang. The poor mother was but a woman too. She did not understand what this connection was. A worn creature, not much younger than herself, what possible tie could bind her to Arthur? The widow, like other women, could believe in any “infatuation” of men; but could not understand any other bond subsisting between these two. The thought went to her heart. Young men had been known before now to be mysteriously attracted by women old, unbeautiful, unlike themselves. Could this be Arthur’s fate? Perhaps it was a danger more dismal than that which he had just escaped in Salem. Mrs. Vincent grew sick at heart. She repeated, with an asperity of which her soft voice might have been thought incapable, “What have you to do with my son?”
Mrs. Hilyard made no answer—perhaps she did not hear the question. Her eyes, always restlessly turning from one object to another, had found out, in the lighted street to which they had now come, a belated postman delivering his last letters. She followed him with devouring looks; he went to Vincent’s door as they approached, delivered something, and passed on into the darkness with a careless whistle. While Mrs. Vincent watched her companion with doubtful and suspicious looks through the veil which, once more among the lights of Grange Street, the minister’s mother had drawn over her face, the unconscious object of her suspicion grasped her arm, and turned to her with beseeching eyes. “It may be news of my child?” she said, with a supplication beyond words. She drew the widow on with the desperation of her anxiety. The little maid had still the letter in her hand when she opened the door. It was not even for Mr. Vincent. It was for the mistress of the house, who had not yet returned from the meeting at Salem. Mrs. Vincent paused upon the threshold, compassionate but determined. She looked at the unhappy woman who stood upon the steps in the light of the lamp, gazing eagerly in at the door, and resolved that she should penetrate no farther; but even in the height of her determination the widow’s heart smote her when she looked at that face, so haggard and worn with passion and anxiety, with its furtive gleaming eyes, and all the dark lines of endurance which were so apparent now, when the tide of emotion had grown too strong to be concealed. “Have you—no—friends in Carlingford?” said the widow, with hesitation and involuntary pity. She could not ask her to enter where, perhaps, her presence might be baleful to Arthur; but the little woman’s tender heart ached, even in the midst of her severity, for the suffering in that face.
“Nowhere!” said Mrs. Hilyard; then, with a gleam out of her
