“Please put up the shutters, and close the shop,” he said at length.
“I wouldn't do that, Mr. Walker, not if I were you; it would tell all the neighbours something wrong had taken place. If you bear up, and give out she's gone away on a visit, no one will be any the wiser, when she comes back, which she's sure to do sooner or later; and you may be sure I would bite my tongue out before I would speak a word. You must not be hard on her, Mr. Walker. Poor young thing, she has had no mother to advise her right, and young girls, if they ain't looked after, are as certain to go wrong as a horse is to go to water. You won't be hard on her now, Mr. Walker; you'll forgive her when she comes back?” Mrs. Holl said pleadingly.
“She will never come back,” the old man said hoarsely, “never. He has married some one else, and she could not bear the disgrace. She is dead now.”
Mrs. Holl sat down in sudden horror. She had not for a moment suspected this. She had only thought that Carry had eloped with some one, and that the letter was to tell her father of it and to beg for forgiveness. This was too dreadful, and as Mrs. Holl thought of the girl she had known so long and seen so lately, now lying dead, or perhaps being swept along by the cold river, she put her apron over her head and cried unrestrainedly. Stephen Walker shed no tears. He sat immovable, crushed and hopeless. When Mrs. Holl recovered, she went outside and put up the shutters, and then closing the door, went back into the parlour.
“Don't take on so, there's a dearie; let me pour you out a little tea. You must not give way. If it is true, poor child, she's happy now. Whatever has happened, she was as good a girl as ever lived, and if she has sinned, she has suffered.” The old man did not seem to hear that he was spoken to; and Mrs. Holl, feeling powerless before this great grief, prepared to leave him to himself. First, however, she reached down a Bible from the shelf, and placed it before him. Then she said, “I will come in again this afternoon and see if I can do anything for you. Keep your heart up, there's a dearie; do try and think she was always a good girl, and that she is happy now, and please try and read the good book; I've heard them say in church that it binds up the bleeding heart.”