"Could you not have written to say you were coming, as any sensible girl would, that you might have been properly met and received? Instead of appearing like a vagabond, to be picked up by anybody." "I never meant to come home--to the house." "But _why_?" asked Susan. "Oh, because--because of my ingratitude in running away--and never writing--and--and all that." "That is, you were ashamed to come and face us." "Yes, I was ashamed," said Jessy, shivering. "And no wonder. Why did you go?" Jessy gave a despairing sigh. Leaving that question in abeyance, Susan returned to the former one. "If you did not mean to come home, what brought you down here at all?" "It didn't matter where I went. And my heart was yearning for a look at the old place--and so I came." "And if we had not found you under the church wall--and we never should but for Johnny Ludlow's running out to get some string--where should you have gone, pray?" "Crawled under some haystack, and let the cold and hunger kill me." "Don't be a simpleton," reproved Susan. "I wish it had been so," returned Jessy. "I'd rather be dying there in quiet. Oh, Susan, I am ill; I am indeed! Let me be at peace!" The appeal shut up Susan Page. She did not want to be too hard upon her. Mr. Duffham came in after church. Abigail had told him that she did not like Jessy's looks; nor yet her cough. He went up alone, and was at the bedside before Jessy was aware. She put up her hand to hide her face, but not in time: Duffham had seen it. Doctors don't get shocks in a general way: they are too familiar with appearances that frighten other people: but he started a little. If ever he saw coming death in a face, he thought he saw it in that of Jessy Page. He drew away the shading hand, and looked at her. Duffham was pompous on the whole and thought a good deal of his gold-headed cane, but he was a tender man with the sad and sick. After that, he sat down and began asking her a few things--where she had been, and what she had done. Not out of curiosity, or quite with the same motive that Miss Susan had just asked; but because he wished to find out whether her illness was more on the body or the mind. She would not answer. Only cried softly. "My dear," said Duffham, "I must have you tell me a little of the past. Don't be afraid: it shall go no further. If you only knew the strange confidences that are sometimes placed in me, Jessy, you would not hesitate."