Part 35 (1/2)
”Don't get the clergyman. Tell him there isn't any. Tell him you've looked all over. Tell him a lie.”
He guessed the trouble was something more than the grief of the moment, and urged in a whisper:
”What's the matter now? Go ahead and tell me. I'll stick by you.”
She bent her head back to look into his face.
”I don't want to marry him now. I can't. I can't. I _can't_.”
Her hands on his shoulders shook him with each repet.i.tion. The force of the words was heightened by the suppressed tone. They should have been screamed. In these whispered breaths they burst from her like blood from a wound. With the last one her head bowed forward on his shoulder with a movement of burrowing as though she would have crawled up and hidden under his skin, and tears, the most violent he had ever seen her shed, broke from her. They came in bursting sobs, a succession of rending throes that she struggled to stifle, swaying and quivering under their stress.
He thought of nothing now but this new pain added to the hour's tragedy, and stroked her shoulder with a low ”Keep quiet--keep quiet,”
then leaned his face against her hair and breathed through its tangles.
”It's all right, I'll do it. I'll say I couldn't find anyone. I'll lie for you, Missy.”
She released him at once, dropped back a step and, lifting a distorted face, gave a nod. He pa.s.sed on, and she fell on the gra.s.s, close to the tent ropes and lay there, hidden by the darkness.
She did not hear a step approaching from the herded tents. Had she been listening it would have been hard to discern, for the feet were moccasin shod, falling noiseless on the m.u.f.fling gra.s.s. A man's figure with fringes wavering along its outline came round the tent wall. The head was thrust forward, the ear alert for voices. Faring softly his foot struck her and he bent, stretching down a feeling hand. It touched her shoulder, slipped along her side, and gripped at her arm.
”What's the matter?” came a deep voice, and feeling the pull on her arm she got to her knees with a strangled whisper for silence. When the light fell across her, he gave a smothered cry, jerked her to her feet and thrust his hand into her hair, drawing her head back till her face was uplifted to his.
There was no one to see, and he let his eyes feed full upon it, a thief with the coveted treasure in his hands. She seemed unconscious of him, a broken thing without sense or volition, till a stir came from the tent. Then he felt her resist his grasp. She put a hand on his breast and pressed herself back from him.
”Hush,” she breathed. ”Daddy John's in there.”
A shadow ran up the canvas wall, bobbing on it, huge and wavering. She turned her head toward it, the tears on her cheeks glazed by the light.
He watched her with widened nostrils and immovable eyes. In the mutual suspension of action that held them he could feel her heart beating.
”Well?” came the doctor's voice.
The old servant answered:
”There weren't no parsons anywhere, I've been all over and there's not one.”
”Parsons?” Courant breathed.
She drew in the fingers spread on his breast with a clawing movement and emitted an inarticulate sound that meant ”Hush.”
”Not a clergyman or missionary among all these people?”
”Not one.”
”We must wait till to-morrow, then.”
”Yes--mebbe there'll be one to-morrow.”
”I hope so.”