"Indeed, Sarah, I can't." And Sophy wept afresh. "Is Noah cross to you?" "Quite the reverse--he's the kindest of men." "He looks very stern." "His looks belie him." "And do you love him?" "If I did not, I should not be so miserable;" and Sophy laid her head down upon her knees and wept aloud. "Mrs. Cotton, you distress us greatly," continued Sarah, taking her cold, passive hand. "Won't you tell a friend and neighbour the reason of this grief?" But Sophy only wept as if her heart were breaking. The mother and daughter looked at each other. The old woman returned again to the charge:-- "Tell one who loves thee like a mother." A deep, long drawn sigh was the only answer. "Speak out your mind, dear," said Sarah, pressing affectionately the thin, wasted hand that lay so passively within her own. "It will ease your heart." "Ah! if I thought that you would tell no one,"--and Sophy raised her death-pale face, and fixed her earnest eyes mournfully upon her interrogator,--"I would confide to you my trouble; but oh, if you were so cruel as to betray me, it would drive me mad." "Sure we can be trusted, Mistress Cotton," and the old woman drew herself up with an air of offended dignity. "What interest could Sarah and I have to betray thee? we be no idle gossips going clacking from house to house about matters that don't concern us. What good could it do us to blab the secrets of other folk?" "It is only anxiety for your welfare, dear Mrs. Cotton," whispered Sarah, "that makes us wish to know what it is that troubles you." "I believe you, my kind friends," replied Sophy. "I know I should feel better if I had the thing off my mind. It is dreadful to bear such a burthen alone." "Does not your husband know it?" "That is what occasions me such grief; I dare not tell him what vexes me; I once hinted at it, and I thought he would have gone mad. You wonder why I look so pale and thin; how can it be otherwise, when I never get a sound night's rest?" "What keeps you awake?" exclaimed both women in a breath. "My husband! He does nothing but rave all night in his sleep about some person he murdered years ago." The women exchanged significant glances.