The stranger looks kindly at the lad.
"My boy," he says, "if you have sisters, look sharp after them, and never let them play the game of lords and ladies. Now come with me, and tell me what I want to know."
It is a few hours later, and the snow is still falling. A candle is alight in the little room in which Nelly restlessly sits or walks. The paper she bought at the post-office lies unfolded on the table. Suddenly a moan escapes her lips; an inward pain has forced it from her. She grasps the table convulsively, and her fingers mechanically clutch the paper. The pain dies away, and she sits exhausted on her chair. Listlessly and without purpose she looks at the paper, seeing at first but a dim confusion of words; but presently something in the column she is gazing at presents itself to her mind in a coherent form. She passes her hands across her eyes, to clear the mist from them, bends eagerly down to the paper, and reads the words that have attracted her attention. Starting to her feet, with the paper in her hand, she is hurrying to the door, when it opens from without, and the stranger who had followed her home appears.
"John!" she cries, with her hand to her heart. "Ah, he has sent you, then! Thank God! He has sent you!"
"No one has sent me," says the gardener's son, who played his part in the Spring and Summer of our Prologue. "I am here of my own accord."
"What for?" she asks, shrinkingly, imploringly. It is remarkable in her that every word she speaks, every movement she makes, implies fear. She bears the appearance of a hunted animal, in dread of an unknown, unseen torture. "Why are you here?"
"I come to ask if I can serve you."
"You! You!"
"I-in truth and sincerity. I will not insult you by telling you that my feelings are unchanged-Good heavens! you are in pain!"
"Don't touch me! Don't come near me!" Two or three minutes pass in silence. Then the lines about her lips relax, and she speaks again, with a strange mingling of timidity and recklessness. "Do you know anything?"
"Much. Enough. Believe me, I wish to know nothing from you."
"And you come to ask me if you can serve me? Meaning it, in truth and sincerity?"
"Meaning it, in truth and sincerity."
She gazes at him, striving to discover whether his face bears truthful witness to the evidence of his lips, and, failing, makes a despairing motion with her hands.
"God help me!" she cries. "I cannot see. I do not know. But I believe you. I must, or I shall go mad. If you do not mean me to take you simply at your word, leave me at once without a sign."
"I will stop and serve you."
Her lips quiver at this exhibition of fidelity. Silently she hands him the paper, and points to the passage which appears to have aroused her to life. His eyes glitter as he reads the paragraph, which announces that on this evening Mr. Temple will take the chair at a lecture on "Man's Duty," to be delivered at a certain institution in a small town twenty miles away.
"I must go to that place," she says.
"To-night?"
"To-night. I must see him. I must speak to him to-night."
"You are not well; you are not fit to travel. To-morrow-"
"To-morrow I may not be able to travel. To-morrow will be too late. What I have said, I must do. You don't know what hangs upon it." Her lips contract with pain again. "If you leave me alone, and I do not see him to-night, I-I-"
Her eyes wander as her tongue refuses to shape the thought which holds her enthralled with fear and horror.
"A word first," says the gardener's son. "How long is it since you have seen him?"
"Three months."
"You have written to him?"
"Yes-yes. Ask me nothing more, for God's sake!"
"The place is twenty miles away. It is now six o'clock. In four hours the lecture will be over. It is snowing hard."
She comes close to his side; she looks straight into his eyes.
"John, your mother is dead."
"Yes."
"I heard of her at Springfield" – she shudders at the name-"and of your devotion to her. You loved her."
"I loved her."
"You stood at her deathbed."
"I held her in my arms when she died."
"Did she speak to you then?"
"A few words."
"They are sacred to you."
"Ay."
She pauses but for a moment; he looks at her wonderingly.
"John, you loved me!& quot; He clenches his hands, and digs his nails into his palms. "This that I am about to say will live in your mind till the last hour of your life, with the last words your mother spoke to you. If you do not take me at once to the place I wish to go to, I will not live till midnight!"
He sees the deadly resolution in her white face, and he determines to obey her.
"Remain here till I return," he says. "I will not be gone a quarter of an hour. Wrap yourself up well, for the wind is enough to freeze one. Put on a thick veil to keep the snow from your face. I will do as you wish."
"Ah, you are good! You are good!" she sighs, and for the first time during the day, for the first time for many days, the tears gush forth. "God reward you-and pity me!"
He goes, and returns within the time he named. A light American buggy is at the door, and the stable-lad is at the horse's head. Nelly is so weak that the young gardener has to support her as she walks from the house; he lifts her with ease in his strong arms into the conveyance-marvelling at her lightness, and loving and pitying her the more because of it-and mounts by her side. The stable-lad looks on wistfully.
"There is no room for you, my lad," says the gardener's son. "Stop here till we return. He can sleep in the house?" He asks this question of Nelly.
"Oh, yes," she answers, listlessly.
The next moment they are off.
The boy runs after them, keeps them in sight for a little while, but is compelled at length to stop for rest.
"Never mind," he mutters, when he has recovered his breath. "I know where they've gone to. I'll follow them the best way I can." And off he starts, at a more reasonable pace for a human being.
The snow comes down faster and faster, and the gardener's son, with his head bent to his breast, plies whip and rein. Their road lies through many winding lanes, lined and dotted with hedges and cottages. Not a soul is out but themselves, and the home-light gleams from the cottage windows. Echoes of voices are heard from within some laughing, some singing, some quarrelling. The gardener's son notices all the signs as they rattle past; Nelly is indifferent to them. They stop at a wayside inn, to give the horse breathing time. The gardener's son urges Nelly to take some refreshment; she refuses, with sad and fretful impatience, and begrudges the horse its needful rest. They start again, he striving to keep up her spirits with tender and cheerful words.
"Another milepost," he says, shaking up the reins, and in a few minutes proclaims blithely, "and another milepost! That's quick work, that last mile. What's the matter with the nag?" he cries, as the beast shies in sudden fright, "It's not a milepost. It's a woman."
The woman, who has been crouching by the roadside, rises, and walks silently into the gloom. They can see that she is in rags-a sad, poverty-stricken mortal, too numbed with cold and misery to make an appeal for charity. This thought is expressed by the young gardener, who concludes his remarks with, "Poor creature!" Nelly shudders at the words and the pitying tone in which they are uttered. White are the roads they traverse, leaving a clear-cut black gash behind them, into which the soft snow falls gently, as though to heal the wounds inflicted. White is the