“Oh, mother, mother,” whispered she, “I’m real sorry to bring all this trouble upon ye—I’m real sorry!”
She smoothed the thin, bleached hair and kissed the wrinkled brow, and the mother cried more copiously, and for an instant strained her daughter to her breast, but she quickly shook her head, and, as though afraid of herself, hastened away as she had come, taking the light with her.
The twilight was gone, the stars brightened, and the darkness deepened. The two pine-trees that stood over against the farm-buildings across the road, shook their solemn heads against the inky sky out of which the blue had been drained by the stars.
Bess was glad of the stars, for they gave her courage, but she was also glad that there was no moon, and glad too that although she could hear the footsteps of a belated labourer echo clear along the road, she could scarcely see his figure under the opposite hedge.
That which she had to do needed darkness to cover it.
Slowly the house grew silent: her father had been out to the “Public,” and had come in again; she had heard him grumbling and swearing in the kitchen as he had grumbled and sworn so often before; then her mother raked the fire out and the two came up-stairs slowly and went to bed. Presently the heavy breathing that had put her to sleep many a night through the thin partition, sounded again along the wall, only to-night it did not put her to sleep.
When the night was two hours older and the village lay dead quiet, Bess rose up and silently bade good-bye to all that she had known in her short, young life: good-bye to the father whom she feared, to the mother whom she dared not trust, good-bye to the virgin bedroom, good-bye to all the foolish little keepsakes of childhood; and with dry eyes, with a spirit that was too tremulous to grieve, yet with a trust as great and a courage as high as ever, made her modest little bundle of clothes, and slid noiselessly down the stairs.
She dared not unlatch the door, but the kitchen-window was low and she managed easily to drop from it into the garden; the hens sat asleep on their perch, and though the dog stirred it was only to wag his tail and lick her hand at the first whisper of her voice.
She shivered as she felt the cold night air—shivered in spirit as well as in body, but Charley was waiting for her, Charley would make all good to her again, and she would not be afraid.