"But she is a little thing," said the woman doubtfully. "She is not
three years old yet. What has he done with her? He told me that he would
take care of her as if she belonged to him."
The old hunchback, bending her inscrutable face, screamed again into the
ear on the pillow.
"That was near sixteen years ago, Maggie," she said. "Have you
forgotten?"
The woman closed her eyes wearily. "Yes, I had forgotten," she answered.
"Time goes so."
But it appeared to Corinna, sitting there, with her eyes on the strip of
sky which was visible through the window, that time would never go on. A
pitiless fact was breaking into her understanding, shattering wall after
wall of incredulity, of conviction that such a thing was too terrible to
be true. She longed to get Patty away; but when she urged her in a
whisper to go downstairs, the girl only shook her head, without moving
her eyes from the haggard face on the pillow. The minutes dragged by
like hours while they waited there, in hushed suspense, for they
scarcely knew what.
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