FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>   >|  
lay a letter which she had crumpled in her pale hands and then tried, vainly, to fling away from her. Catherine leaned over the bed. "What is it, mother?" she said. "You are not in pain?" Mrs. Ardagh shifted in the bed. There was a suggestion of almost intolerable uneasiness in the movement. "I am in pain, horrible pain," she answered. "No--no," as Catherine was about to ring for the nurse, "not in the body--not that." Catherine sat down by the bed and clasped her mother's hot hand. "What is it?" she whispered. Mrs. Ardagh was silent for a moment. She blinked her heavy eyelids to stop the tears from falling on her wasted cheeks. At length she said, "William Foster has done more evil." Catherine did not speak. Her heart beat irregularly, and then seemed to stop, and then beat with unnatural force again. "Catherine," her mother continued, "Jenny is utterly lost." "No, mother, no!" Catherine said. "I will go to her. Let me go. I will rescue her. I will make her see----" "Hush--you can't. She is dead and she died in shame." She paused. Catherine did not speak. "And now," Mrs. Ardagh continued feebly, "that man is spreading the net for others. Do you know, Catherine, I often pray for him?" "Do you, mother?" "Yes. He has great powers. I never let your father know it, but that first book of his made an impression upon me that has never faded. That's why I think of him even now--that and the fate of poor Jenny." She lifted herself up a little in the bed. "His last book, I am told, is much more terrible, much more deadly than the first." "Is it?" "You haven't read it?" Catherine hesitated a moment, then she said, "I know something about it." Mrs. Ardagh lay still for a while, as if thinking. Presently she said, "Catherine, such an odd, foolish idea keeps coming to me." "What is it, mother?" "That I should like to see 'William Foster' and--and try to make him understand what he is doing. Perhaps he doesn't know, doesn't realise. God often lets the devil blind us, you know. If I told him about Jenny, told him all about her, he might see--he might understand. Don't you think so?" Catherine was holding her mother's hand. She pressed it vehemently. "Oh, mother, perhaps he might!" Mrs. Ardagh sat up still more among her pillows. "You don't think it's a silly fancy?" "I don't know. I wonder." Catherine was crying quietly. "It keeps coming," said Mrs. Ardagh, "as
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Catherine

 

mother

 

Ardagh

 
Foster
 
coming
 

William

 
understand
 

continued

 

moment

 

lifted


pressed
 

holding

 

vehemently

 

crying

 

impression

 
quietly
 

pillows

 

Presently

 

realise

 
thinking

foolish

 
Perhaps
 

deadly

 

terrible

 

hesitated

 

rescue

 

movement

 
horrible
 

answered

 

clasped


eyelids

 

falling

 

blinked

 

whispered

 

silent

 

uneasiness

 

intolerable

 

vainly

 

crumpled

 

letter


suggestion

 

shifted

 

leaned

 

wasted

 

feebly

 

spreading

 
paused
 

powers

 

irregularly

 

cheeks