Salem Chapel · Chapter 14 (2/2)

“I need not suggest to you that this must be acted on at once,” she said to Vincent, who, in his agitation, saw how the hand, with which she leant on the table, clenched hard till it grew white with the pressure. “The man we have to deal with spares nothing.” She stopped, and then, with an effort, went up to the half-fainting mother, who hung upon Vincent’s arm, and took her hands and pressed them close. “We have both thrust our children into the lion’s mouth,” she cried, with a momentary softening. “Go, poor woman, and save your child if you can, and so will I⁠—we are companions in misfortune. And you are a priest, why cannot you curse him?” she exclaimed, with a bitter cry. The next moment she had taken down a travelling-bag from a shelf, and, kneeling down by a trunk, began to transfer some things to it. Vincent left his mother, and went up to her with a sudden impulse, “I am a priest, let me bless you,” said the young man, touching with a compassionate hand the dark head bending before him. Then he took his mother away. He could not speak as he supported her downstairs; she, clinging to him with double weakness, could scarcely support herself at all in her agitation and wonder when they got into the street. She kept looking in his face with a pitiful appeal that went to his heart.

“Tell me, Arthur, tell me!” She sobbed it out unawares, and over and over before he knew what she was saying. And what could he tell her? “We must go to Susan⁠—poor Susan!” was all the young man could say.