James Penhallow was disagreeably aware that it was his duty to bring
about the punishment of his drunken foster-brother, but he did not like
it. When the next morning he was about to mount his horse, he saw Mrs.
Lamb, now an aged woman, coming slowly up the avenue. As she came to the
steps of the porch, Penhallow went to meet her, giving the help of his
hand.
"Good-morning, Ellen," he said, "what brings you here over the snow this
frosty day? Do you want to see Mrs. Penhallow?"
For a moment she was too breathless to answer. The withered leanness of
the weary old face moved in an effort to speak, but was defeated by
emotion. She gasped, "Let me set down."
He led her into the hall and gave her a chair. Then he called his wife
from her library-room. Ann at once knew that something more than the
effect of exertion was to be read in the moving face. The dull grey eyes
of age stared at James Penhallow and then at her, and again at him, as in
the vigour of perfect health they looked down at his old nurse and with
kindly patience waited. "Don't hurry, Ellen," said Mrs. Ann. "You are out
of breath."
She seemed to Ann like some dumb animal that had no language but a look
to tell the story of despair or pain. At last she found her voice and
gasped out, "I came to tell you he has run away.
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