Making a long détour he had arrived at last in the woodland back of the Levis house and there waited for darkness to become complete, when he intended to go to the edge of the woods and look down upon the lighted windows and perhaps see Ellen's shadow moving back and forth.
The November evening was still and he had taken only a few steps into the woodland when he heard the sound of crying. Ellen herself was no more tender-hearted and he at once moved forward rapidly, then stood still, trying to decide upon the direction from which the sound came. He could now hear nothing; perhaps his footsteps on the dry leaves had betrayed his approach. Then he heard the sound again nearer at hand. It was not the whimper of a trapped animal, it was the smothered sobbing of a human being. He went forward swiftly. Then again he paused. The low western sun cast a single level beam through the clouds; the light fell upon Ellen, a mournful figure in a black shawl upon a stump, Ellen alone in the twilight, Ellen unreconciled to her bereavement, Ellen changed and forlorn.
"It is I. Can I help you, Ellen?" he asked breathlessly.
Ellen sprang to her feet, her black shawl trailing.
"Oh, is it you?" She drew a long breath of relief. Amos was negligible--she had thought that it was Matthew! It made little difference whether Amos observed her woes.
"You can persuade them to let me go away," she said despairingly. "I haven't anything to live for, I'm all alone." Then she recovered herself. "Please forget this. No one can do anything." She rubbed her eyes furiously with a wet handkerchief and pulled her shawl round her. "I hadn't any business to talk about it."
At once she walked rapidly out of the gloom of the woods into the brighter light and made her way, somber and forlorn, across the fields.
Amos took her place upon the broad stump. He saw her reach the kitchen door, he saw the light gleam. It was possible that Matthew and Millie were away--was she then alone, poor, poor Ellen? He would go down and speak to her further; he should not have let her go uncomforted, he who meditated upon religious matters, who translated holy books! But suppose that Matthew and Millie should return, Millie with her sharp, cunning eyes! Besides, he knew that he could not help Ellen, she would not listen.