"
There was command in the tones of her voice, and rising to her feet
Maggie walked away, with a dread feeling at her heart, a feeling which
whispered vaguely to her of a deed of blood--for what save this
could thus affect old Hagar? Her road home led near the little
burying-ground, and impelled by something she could not resist she
paused at her mother's grave. The moonlight was falling softly upon
it; and, seating herself within the shadow of the monument, she sat
a long time thinking, not of the dead, but of Hagar and the strange
words she had uttered. Suddenly, from the opposite side of the
graveyard, there came a sound as of someone walking; and, looking
up, Maggie saw approaching her the bent figure of the old woman, who
seemed unusually excited. Her first impulse was to fly, but knowing
how improbable it was that Hagar should seek to do her harm, and
thinking she might discover some clew to the mystery if she remained,
she sat still, while, kneeling on Hester's grave, old Hagar wept
bitterly, talking the while, but so incoherently that Maggie could
distinguish nothing save the words, "You, Hester, have forgiven me."
"Can it be that she has killed her own child!" thought Maggie, and
starting to her feet she stood face to face with Hagar, who screamed:
"You here, Maggie Miller!--here with the others who know my secret!
But you shan't wring it from me. You shall never know it, unless the
dead rise up to tell you.
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