When the minister prayed for the afflicted “sister and daughter, who was now languishing upon a bed of sickness,” his wife’s mouth tightened, her feet and hands grew cold.  It seemed to her that her own tongue pronounced every word that her husband spoke.  And there was, moreover, a little nervous thrill through the audience.  Oddly enough, everybody seemed to hear that portion of the minister’s prayer quite distinctly.  Even one old deaf man in the farthest corner of the kitchen looked meaningly at his neighbor.

The service was a long one.  The village hearse and the line of black covered wagons waited in front of the Thayer house over an hour.  There had been another fall of snow the night before, and now the north wind blew it over the country.  Outside ghostly spirals of snow raised from the new drifts heaped along the road-sides like graves, disappeared over the fields, and moved on the borders of distant woods, while in-doors the minister held forth, and the choir sang funeral hymns with a sweet uneven drone of grief and consolation.

When at last the funeral was over and the people came out, they bent their heads before this wild storm which came from the earth instead of the sky.

The cemetery was a mile out of the village; when the procession came driving rapidly home it was nearly sunset, and the thoughts of the people turned from poor Ephraim to their suppers.  It is only for a minute that death can blur life for the living.  Still, when the evening smoke hung over the roofs the people talked untiringly of Ephraim and his mother.

As time went on the dark gossip in the village swelled louder.  It was said quite openly that Deborah Thayer had killed her son Ephraim.  The neighbors did not darken her doors.  The minister and his wife called once.  The minister offered prayer and spoke formal words of consolation as if he were reading from invisible notes.  His wife sat by in stiff, scared silence.  Deborah nodded in response; she said very little.

Indeed, Deborah had become very silent.  She scarcely spoke to Caleb.  For hours after he had gone to bed the poor bewildered old man could hear his wife wrestling in prayer with the terrible angel of the Lord whom she had evoked by the stern magic of grief and remorse.  He could hear her harsh, solemn voice in self-justification and agonized appeal.  After a while he learned to sleep with it still ringing in his ears, and his heavy breathing kept pace with Deborah’s prayer.

Deborah had not the least doubt that she had killed her son Ephraim.

There was some talk of the church’s dealing with her, some women declared that they would not go to meeting if she did; but no stringent measures were taken, and she went to church every Sunday all the rest of the winter and during the spring.

It was an afternoon in June when the doctor’s wife and Mrs. Ray went into Deborah Thayer’s yard.  They paused hesitatingly before the door.