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But by one process or the other, or by both, Hetty Gunn was, as all the country people round about said, "Just the old Squire over again," and if they sometimes added, as it must be owned they did, "It's a thousand pities she wasn't a boy," there was, in this reflection on the Creator, no reflection on Hetty's womanliness: it was rather on the accepted theory and sphere of woman's activities and manifestations.
And then the outer world broke in on them, swept between them with an outcry. Someone was there, someone who drew short sobbing breaths, who caught at her and clung to her. It was Cousin Hetty's old Agnes . . . why in the world was she here? . . . and she was saying in a loud voice as though she had no control of it, "Oh, oh! Come quick! Come quick!"
The same nothingness it would have been, had she grasped boldly at life's realities and taken whatever she wanted. And all Cousin Hetty's mother's sacrifices for her, her mother's hopes for her, the slow transfusion of her mother's life to hers; that was all dead now, had been of no avail against this nothingness.
To lie on the wool-packs, with a cranny left between the curtains of the awning to let in the air, was luxury to Hetty now, and she half-slept away the hours till the driver came to ask her if she wanted to get down and have "some victual"; he himself was going to eat his dinner at this "public." Late at night they reached Leicester, and so this second day of Hetty's journey was past.
Smitten to the heart by a sudden and overwhelming remorse, Hetty was speechless. She could only look pleadingly into his face, and murmur: "Oh, Eben! Eben!" He repeated his questions, growing calmer with each word, and with each moment's increasing realization of Hetty's presence. "Who took you away?" "Nobody," answered Hetty. "I came alone." "Did you not love me, Hetty?" said Dr.
Tears sometimes came to Hetty's eyes at such words as these; and good Father Antoine went with renewed fervor to his prayers for her conversion. In the centre of the village was a square laid out in winding paths, and surrounded by fir trees.
But Nature had other plans for Hetty. In fact if one were disposed to be superstitious, one might well have said that fate itself had determined to thwart Hetty's resolution of hostility. Sally did not recover rapidly from her illness: her long mental suffering had told upon her vitality, and left her unprepared for any strain.
I" the words died on his lips: he stood like one stricken by paralysis; his hands falling helplessly by his side, and his eyes fixed in almost ghastly dread on this gray-haired woman, from whose white lips came, in Hetty's voice, the cry: "Eben! oh! Eben!" Hetty was the first to recover herself.
As the twilight deepened into dusk, the mysterious night sounds began to come up from the woods; strange bird notes, stealthy steps of tiny creatures. Hetty's nerves thrilled with the awful loneliness: she could bear it no longer; she began to walk up and down the beach; the sound of her footsteps drowned many of the mysterious noises, and made her feel less alone. At last it was dark.
She might just as well go down and make Aunt Hetty a visit now she was so near, and walk home by the side-road. Of course Paul would say, nothing could keep him from saying, that she had planned to do that very thing, right along, and when she left the school-house headed straight for Aunt Hetty's cookie-jar. Well, let him!
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