The gallows! The gallows! Black it stood against
the burning light which dazzled her shut eyes, press on them as she
would. Oh! she was going mad; and for awhile she lay outwardly
still, but with the pulses careering through her head with wild
vehemence.
And then came a strange forgetfulness of the present, in thought of
the long-past times;--of those days when she hid her face on her
mother's pitying, loving bosom, and heard tender words of comfort,
be her grief or her error what it might;--of those days when she had
felt as if her mother's love was too mighty not to last for
ever;--of those days when hunger had been to her (as to the little
stranger she had that evening relieved) something to be thought
about, and mourned over;--when Jem and she had played together; he,
with the condescension of an older child, and she, with unconscious
earnestness, believing that he was as much gratified with important
trifles as she was;--when her father was a cheery-hearted man, rich
in the love of his wife, and the companionship of his friend;--when
(for it still worked round to that), when mother was alive, and HE
was not a murderer.
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