For a moment she hesitated and trembled from head to foot, while the warm blood rushed to her cheeks, until they were a deep crimson hue.
Swiftly she extended her hand towards the package, and grasped it; in another instant it was concealed in her dress, and the act of despair was accomplished.
"God pity me!" she exclaimed, as she left the room and departed from the scene of her involuntary crime.
Despair had induced her to commit a theft, but no angel of God is purer in mind than was the Soldier's Wife, when she did so.

It was the result of madness, and if the Recording Angel witnessed the act, he recorded not the transgression against her, for it was a sin only in the eyes of man; above it was the child of despair, born of a pure and innocent mind, and there is no punishment for such.
"Thank God, I have the means of saving my darling child," exclaimed Mrs.Wentworth, as she bent her steps towards a druggist's store.
Entering it, she purchased a few articles of medicine, and started for the old negro's cabin, intending to send the old woman for a physician, as soon as she could reach there.
Swiftly she sped along the streets.

Many passers by stopped and looked with surprise at her rapid walking.

They knew not the sorrows of the Soldier's Wife.

Many there were who gazed upon her threadbare habiliments and haggard features, who could never surmise that the light of joy had ceased to burn in her heart.