Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/232

 poor old friend, Goody Nurse. I feel that I am watched and suspected—the merest trifle, a chance word, a look even, may place me in the same position. Complete silence and total inaction are, I feel, my only chance for escape, until you can take me and our children away. My only hope of safety is in being overlooked and forgotten. Will you not promise me this, at least? I ask it for our children's sake as well as my own."

Of course this promise was freely given; for Colonel Browne saw, no less clearly than his wife did, that in the present inflammable state of the public mind, any notoriety—any thing which might serve to draw attention to them—would be not only unwise, but positively unsafe; and he felt sure that a public discussion of the mysterious events of the night—in the strange truth of which his wife so fully believed—would be sure to link her name with the powers of darkness in a way that might peril her reputation, her safety, and even her life; and he fully agreed to her proposal to keep the whole affair a profound secret.

In compliance with this decision, Mrs.