Part 43 (2/2)
”I think it was real mean of Mr. Graham to turn on all the lights that way,” she simpered. ”Somebody else might've seen.”
”Yes,” agreed the young man, half distracted; ”but of course I daren't turn them off again.”
”Never mind. We can wait.” Josie blushed.
”I'll just sit here and wait--we can talk till Tracey comes, and then you can walk home with me.”
”Yes, that'll be nice,” he agreed, but without absolute ecstasy.
Fortunately for him, in his temper of that moment, Pete Willing reeled into the shop, two-thirds drunk, with his face smeared with blood from a cut on his forehead.
”'Scuse me,” he muttered huskily. ”Kin I see you a minute, Doc?”
He reeled and almost fell--would have fallen had not Duncan caught his arm and guided him to a chair. ”Great Scott, Pete!” he cried. ”What's happened to you?”
”M' wife...” Pete explained thickly.
XX
ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND
”Perhaps I'd better go.” Josie, fluttering with alarm and a little pale, went quickly to the door.
Duncan followed her a pace or two. ”I can't leave just now,” he stammered.
”I don't mind one bit. I don't want to be in the way. I'll telephone from home.... Good-night, dearest!” On tiptoes she drew his face down to hers and kissed him. ”I'm so happy...”
Half dazed, Nat stared after her until her lightly moving figure merged with the shadows beneath the trees and was lost. Then, with a sigh, he turned back to Pete.
The sheriff had undoubtedly suffered at the hands of that militant person, Mrs. Willing. ”Great Scott!” Duncan exclaimed as he examined the two-inch gash in his head. ”That's a bird, Pete.”
”M' wife done it,” Willing muttered huskily. ”Sh' threw side 'r th'
house at me, I think.”
”Wife, eh?” The coincidence smote Duncan with redoubled force. He s.h.i.+vered ”Well, she certainly gave it to you good.” He went behind the counter to prepare a dressing for the wound, which, if wide, was neither deep nor serious and gave him little concern for Pete.
The latter ruminated on the event, breathing stertorously, while Duncan was fixing up a wash of peroxide. ”She'll kill me some day,” he announced suddenly, with intense conviction in his tone.
”Oh, don't say that....”
Opposition roused Pete to a fury of a.s.sertion. ”Yes, she will, sure!”
he bawled. Then his emotion quieted. ”But I'd 'bout as soon be dead's live with her, anyway.”
”_Um_.” Nat got some absorbent cotton and adhesive plaster. ”Been drinking again, hadn't you?”
”Yesh,” Pete admitted with a leer of drunken cunning. ”But she druv me to it.” He was quiet for a moment. ”Mish'r Duncan,” he volunteered cheerfully, ”you ain't got _no_ idee how lucky y'are y'aint married.”
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