But as her head cleared she
began to understand. She knew the Mountain had but the most infrequent
intercourse with the valleys; she had often enough heard it said that no
one ever went up there except the minister, when someone was dying. And
now it was her mother who was dying... and she would find herself as
much alone on the Mountain as anywhere else in the world. The sense of
unescapable isolation was all she could feel for the moment; then
she began to wonder at the strangeness of its being Mr. Miles who had
undertaken to perform this grim errand. He did not seem in the least
like the kind of man who would care to go up the Mountain. But here he
was at her side, guiding the horse with a firm hand, and bending on her
the kindly gleam of his spectacles, as if there were nothing unusual in
their being together in such circumstances.
For a while she found it impossible to speak, and he seemed to
understand this, and made no attempt to question her. But presently she
felt her tears rise and flow down over her drawn cheeks; and he must
have seen them too, for he laid his hand on hers, and said in a low
voice: "Won't you tell me what is troubling you?"
She shook her head, and he did not insist: but after a while he said, in
the same low tone, so that they should not be overheard: "Charity, what
do you know of your childhood, before you came down to North Dormer?"
She controlled herself, and answered: "Nothing only what I heard Mr.
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