"I come home and I tell them I am discharged. I not tell them why, for
they very good and stealing is a sin. They be so shocked and sorry. I
sit beside my mother, despair in my heart, and I watch her dying, dying,
dying.
"Her pain is all over now; she leave me last night and she never come
back again. I watch with her in there when you come. I watch with her
some more when you go; then I must tell that she is gone, that she is
dead, and they come and take her away," and she threw herself on the
floor by the door of her mother's room in a perfect agony of grief.
In a moment the kind-hearted woman was on her knees beside the
heartbroken girl, whom she gathered into her motherly arms, murmuring
words of comfort all the while. Gradually the dreadful sobbing subsided,
and after a time the girl was once more standing before that door she
guarded so jealously. Seeing that she was her own calm self again, the
forewoman said gently:
"My poor child, again I say that I wish you had told me a week ago. So
much suffering would have been saved. However, this is no time for vain
regrets, it is the time for action. I must leave you at once, Julie, but
I will be back, and will, I hope, bring you good news. In the meantime
do you say nothing to anyone about your mother. You will believe that I
will help you? You will do as I say?"
"You very good," replied Julie simply, laying her hand in that of the
forewoman; "when you want me, you find me there," and she pointed to the
door behind which her mother's silent form was resting.
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