He would have spoken to her in the mildest and tenderest of tones, while in his heart he wished her dead.

So far can a fine fastidiousness, allied to a sentiment of compassion, go towards making a man a consummate hypocrite.
Parson Dorrance came often to see Mercy, but always with Lizzy Hunter.

By the subtle instinct of love, he knew that to see him thus, and see him often, would soonest win back for him his old place in Mercy's life.

The one great desire he had left now was to regain that,--to see her again look up in his face with the frank, free, loving look which she always had had until that sad morning.
A strange incident happened to Mercy in these first weeks of her mother's illness.

She was called to the door one morning by the message that a stranger wished to speak to her.