"You can do nothing now," said his friend, decidedly. "Before we get to
the Gate the road will be impassable for our horses."

"For ANY horses?" asked Kate.

"For any horses. For any man or beast I might say. Where we cannot get
out, no one can get in," he added, as if answering her thoughts. "I
am afraid that you won't see your brother to-morrow morning. But I'll
reconnoitre as soon as I can do so without torturing HIM," he said,
looking anxiously at the helpless man; "he's got about his share of
pain, I reckon, and the first thing is to get him easier." It was the
longest speech he had made to her; it was the first time he had fairly
looked her in the face. His shy restlessness had suddenly given way to
dogged resignation, less abstracted, but scarcely more flattering to
his entertainers. Lifting his companion gently in his arms, as if he
had been a child, he reascended the staircase, Mrs. Scott and the
hastily-summoned Molly following with overflowing solicitude. As soon as
they were alone in the parlor Mrs. Hale turned to her sister: "Only that
our guests seemed to be as anxious to go just now as you were to pack
them off, I should have been shocked at your inhospitality. What has
come over you, Kate? These are the very people you have reproached me so
often with not being civil enough to."

"But WHO are they?"

"How do I know? There is YOUR BROTHER'S letter."

She usually spoke of her husband as "John." This slight shifting of
relationship and responsibility to the feminine mind was significant.
Kate was a little frightened and remorseful.