Part 8 (1/2)

”I'm dead beat,” said the hotel-keeper under his breath, ”if I ever seed anything like that!” But with the ready suspicion of a prudent householder he questioned her. Where had the man come by the wound? For they saw the blood-stained bandages she clasped.

Yesterday, she explained, he had received a slight bullet-wound by accident, and to-day, in their long travel, the loss of blood had disabled him.

”Does he belong to you, young lady?”

Susannah busied herself with the bandages for a moment, but terror had carried her far. She replied with gentle decision, ”He is my husband.”

CHAPTER IX.

”It is our fault.”

That evening Ephraim Croom stood in his father's sitting-room, near the door of the dark stair that led up to his own rooms. His shoulders were drooping. His face was gray and haggard. Even his hair and beard, damp, unkempt, seemed to express remorse in their outline. He stood doggedly facing his father and mother, repeating the thing that he saw to be true, but with no further words to interpret his insight.

To his parents his opinions, his att.i.tude, appeared as an outrage upon reason. His father looked at him with greater severity than he had ever before exercised upon his only child. ”I reckon, Ephraim, that you speak without using the sense that the Almighty has been mercifully pleased to give you. You know, Ephraim, the girl has been as a daughter in this house. When has it been said to her that her father, dying in his worldly follies, left her dest.i.tute, the pittance she gets needing to go for his debts? She's had about as good a home as any girl should want, and your mother and the ministers have dealt faithfully with her concerning her soul.”

Ephraim made a movement of the head as if for a moment he could have stood upright, feeling in one respect innocent; then again there was nothing but the droop of shame visible.

His mother looked at him with eyes that were red with weeping. She had been wiping them with fierce furtive rubs of her handkerchief; now she was rubbing the handkerchief, a hard ball, in the palm of one hand.

Perhaps grief at Susannah's loss had been dominant until Ephraim's accusation had fanned her anger. ”She'd better have gone with him openly from the baptising. I never thought then that it was love-making she was after.” Deep scorn was here expressed. ”Religion! 'Twasn't much religion she had in her mind. And we treated her real kindly, Ephraim, thinking 'twas the hold of delusion they had upon her. 'Twould be very small use to bring her back even if you or your father could have found out which way they'd gone. 'Tisn't likely she'd stay long if you fetched her, seeing she's that sort of a girl, with a hankering for the man. There isn't a place in this house to lock her into unless it is the cellar.”

It was perhaps the thought of the unspeakable degradation it would be to the worthy house to hold a girl as prisoner in the cellar, perhaps the dismal knowledge that that which had already befallen them and her was not much better than this, that caused his mother here to lose her self-control entirely and weep bitterly. Ephraim shrank under her words as if they had been the strokes of a whip striking him. When she had ended he went on heavily up the dark stair.

Both the men were in riding-dress. The elder man, when he had comforted his wife as best he might, laid aside his boots and whip determinedly, believing that the use for them, as far as concerned the search for his niece, was at an end. Upstairs, sitting between the three windows that looked east and north and south, Ephraim sat as long as exhaustion made rest necessary. He was still equipped for the road, thinking only which way it behoved him to travel, and when.

CHAPTER X.

The next day, toward afternoon, Joseph Smith stood by the bedside of Angel Halsey. Susannah, wan and weary with a long night's nursing, was sitting beside the pillow. Smith looked upon them both benevolently. It was some minutes before he spoke. Susannah was too much in awe of him to say much, but his presence was welcome. Since Halsey's rational self had been lost in his delirium, loneliness like darkness that could be felt had pressed upon her.

”Our brother will be healed,” said Smith at length. ”It is given to me to know that he will be healed.” He then spread his hands over the sick man and made a short prayer. There was much fervour in his words and his voice was loud.

”Give him to drink,” said Smith.

”Biery's wife told me as long as he was in fever not to give him water.”

Smith looked down upon her kindly, but he spoke in a tone of absolute authority. ”My sister, I say unto thee give him water. It is given to me to know that he must have water and that he will do well.”

”It is never done in such cases,” said Susannah. ”I remember when my father--” She had not the faith that Smith required of her.

Without a frown, with perfect gentleness, Smith fetched the water and, lifting the sick man's head, allowed him to drink eagerly. Halsey was obviously comforted.

Smith had something else to say. If he had not been who he was Susannah might have perceived that he was somewhat perplexed, even embarra.s.sed.

Just as a child does not easily attribute to the adult such hindering emotions, so she supposed him to be upon a plane above them.

He lingered by the bedside, apparently watching the sufferer. At length he said, ”You set out with this young man--yesterday morning?”

”Yes, very early.”

There was another pause, then he said, ”Did you go before a justice of the peace?”