I'll never tell anybody as long as I live. I won't, upon my word,"
she continued, as she saw the look of horror resting on Hagar's face;
"I'll help you keep it, and we'll have such grand times talking it
over. Did it concern yourself?" and Maggie folded her arms upon the
lap of the old woman, who answered in a voice so hoarse and unnatural
that Maggie involuntarily shuddered, "Old Hagar would die inch by inch
sooner than tell you, Maggie Miller, her secret."
"Was it, then, so dreadful?" asked Maggie half fearfully, and casting
a stealthy glance at the dim woods, where the night shadows were
falling, and whose winding path she must traverse alone on her
homeward route. "Was it, then, so dreadful?"
"Yes, dreadful, dreadful; and yet, Maggie, I have sometimes wished
you knew it. You would forgive me, perhaps. If you knew how I was
tempted," said Hagar, and her voice was full of yearning tenderness,
while her bony fingers parted lovingly the shining hair from off the
white brow of the young girl, who pleaded again, "Tell it to me,
Hagar."
There was a fierce struggle in Hagar's bosom, but the night wind,
moving through the hemlock boughs, seemed to say, "Not yet--not yet";
and, remembering her vow, she answered: "Leave me, Maggie Miller, I
cannot tell you the secret. You of all others. You would hate me for
it, and that I could not bear. Leave me alone, or the sight of you, so
beautiful, pleading for my secret, will kill me dead.
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