"
And whispering to Amy, she added, "The poor child can't last but a
little longer."
Reassured, the sufferer sank back again with a long sigh, and closed
her eyes wearily, but a moment later, opened them once more to look
at Amy.
"I'm so glad you're here," she said feebly; "but I can't bear to have
you think that I am all bad." And then in whispered, halting words,
with many a break and pause, she told her story; a story all too common.
And Amy, listening with white horror-stricken face, guessed that which
Mother Gray could not know, and which the sufferer tried to conceal,
the name of her betrayer.
"And so we were married in secret, or I thought we were," she concluded.
"I know now that it was only a farce. He came to visit me twice after
the sham ceremony that betrayed me, and I never saw him again until
last night. Oh God, forgive him; forgive him, I--I loved him so."
The poor wronged creature burst into a fit of passionate sobbing that
could not be controlled. In vain did Mother Gray try to soothe her.
It was of no use. Until at last, exhausted, she sank again into a
stupor, from which she roused only once near morning, and then she
whispered simply, "Good-bye Mother; Goodbye Miss Amy. Don't let father
know." And just as the day dawned in all its glory, her soul, pure and
unstained as that of her babe, took its flight, and the smile of
innocent girlhood was upon her lips.
When Amy reached home early in the forenoon, she met her brother in
the hallway, just going out.
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