'Mary,' said Catherine again, mistaking her mood for one of tense defiance and despair, 'Mary, if I were to go out now and leave Mrs. Irwin with you, and if I were to go up all the way to the top of Shanmoss and back again, and if I could tell you there was nothing there, nothing!--If I were to stay out till the dark has come--it will be here in half an hour--and you could be quite sure when you saw me again, that there was nothing near you but the dear old hills, and the power of God, could you believe me and try and rest and sleep?'
Mary looked at her intently. If Catherine could have seen clearly in the dim light she would have caught something of the cunning of madness slipping into the dying woman's expression. While she waited for the answer, there was a noise in the kitchen outside an opening of the outer door, and a voice. Catherine's heart stood still. She had to make a superhuman effort to keep her attention fixed on Mary.
'Go!' said the hoarse whisper close beside her, and the girl lifted her wasted hand, and pushed her visitor from her. 'Go!' it repeated insistently, with a sort of wild beseeching then, brokenly, the gasping breath interrupting: 'There's naw fear--naw fear--fur the likes o' you!'
'I'm not afraid,' she said gently, but her hand shook as she pushed her chair back; 'God is everywhere, Mary.'
She put on her hat and cloak, said something in Mrs. Irwin's ear, and stooped to kiss the brow which to the shuddering sense under her will seemed already cold and moist with the sweats of death. Mary watched her go; Mrs. Irwin, with the air of one bewildered, drew her chair nearer to the settle; and the light of the fire, shooting and dancing through the June twilight, threw such fantastic shadows over the face on the pillow that all expression was lost. What was moving in the crazed mind? Satisfaction, perhaps, at having got rid of one witness, one gaoler, one of the various antagonistic forces surrounding her? She had a dim, frenzied notion she should have to fight for her liberty when the call came, and she lay tense and rigid, waiting--the images of insanity whirling through her brain, while the light slowly, slowly waned.
Catherine opened the door to the kitchen. The two carriers were standing there, and Robert Elsmere also stood with his back to her, talking to them in an undertone.