Read "Starvecrow Farm" by Stanley J. Weyman online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The distance to the house was short. Before Henrietta had done more than taste the bliss of the open night, had done more than lift her eyes in thankfulness to the dark profundity above her, she was under the eaves. A stealthy tap was answered by the turning of a key, a door was quickly and silently opened, and she was pushed forward. Bess muttered a word or two-to a person unseen-and gripping her arm, thrust her along a passage. A second door gave way as mysteriously, and Henrietta found herself dazzled and blinking on the threshold of the kitchen which she had left twenty-four hours before. It was lighted, but not with the wastefulness and extravagance of the previous evening. Nor did it display those signs of disorder and riot which had yesterday opened her eyes.
She was sinking under the weight of the child, which she had hugged to her that it might not cry, and she went straight to the settle and laid the boy on it. He opened his eyes and looked vacantly before him; but, apparently, he was too far gone in weakness, or in too much fear, to cry. While Henrietta, relieved of the weight, and perhaps of a portion of her fears, sank on the settle beside him, leant her face on her arms and burst into passionate weeping.