“YOU go on with the corn,” Wully said to John at breakfast. “I’m taking Chirstie over to mother’s.” John made no comment. Chirstie looked as if she had had fever unusually severe the day before, and naturally she would be better cared for at the McLaughlins’. John suspected nothing. He wasn’t especially observant. Talking still of the celebration, he didn’t see Wully watching his wife, covertly watching the way her eyes turned hauntedly toward any slight sound out of doors. Wully went through with the prayers as usual. “Prosper us in our duties this day!” he implored, with unaccustomed fervency. John went away to his work. Chirstie and the baby got into the wagon, where Wully had slyly hidden his gun—he had to conceal his sterner purpose from her. He said to her simply that he had made Peter get out once, and he could do it again. He saw no use in saying how much more thoroughly he intended doing it this time. They scarcely spoke, riding away together, man and wife. Sitting there, so close to him, she seemed so dear ... so dear ... and life so precious.... Why should he have to endanger it now just when he was beginning to appreciate[194] it, for the sake of that man’s villainy! The poignant silence struggled and surged about them, his rage, her fear, their love fighting together with no relief in expression, her beseeching, warning eyes searching the face he tried to keep averted.
No one at his mother’s had heard of Peter’s return. That was proved by the fact that no one began talking about it. Chirstie had had fever the day before, Wully announced to them shortly. He was worried about her. He had to go over to the store, and he thought she had better be left where she could have some care. He said he and John could “bach it” a few days. She spoke up sharply and demanded that he come for her by evening at least. He had to promise that much, to keep her from exciting suspicion. It was plain she meant to take no denial. Her eyes implored him to be careful.
Lightened of his encumbrances, he drove away. He was praying that circumstances might be made to serve him, so that he could get his task over secretly. If not, then Peter would find that no woman could help him now! He drove straight along towards his aunt’s, grimly, not having to nurse his wrath, having only to restrain it. He wasn’t made for anger, as he knew. It had even as a little boy always made him ill. It had exhausted him now. He felt limp. And he must be strong and calm for what was coming. He let his horses take their own gait. The heat of the sun, after the rain of the night, was making the[195] country one great steam bath. He wiped the sweat from his forehead.
He came to the McTaggerts’ corner. John had seen that man so far home the night before. If John had known then all that story, what a chance he would have had. Thank God he hadn’t known! But when he did know, to-day, now, in a few hours, he would stand by Wully with what a sincere strength! Of course John couldn’t be expected to stay and look after the farm while Wully was taken—where? Maybe Andy would do that. And Chirstie would have to stay at his mother’s until—what? His happiness was scarcely more now than a sickening faint memory. He could do what he had to do. The McLaughlins could always do that. And do it well!
He could see the little Keith house now. He drove on towards it. There was no one working in the hayfield. There was no one hoeing corn. No sign of life but a tethered colt in the path. He drove up, and got out of the wagon. He tied his steaming horses to the barn. He hadn’t taken his gun into his hands yet, when the door opened, and his aunt came out.
She was ready for some work in the garden apparently. She wore a kind of sunbonnet made by sewing a ruffle of old calico part way round a man’s old cap, to protect her neck from the sun. She saw Wully, and her face lightened with a greeting.
“Is it you, Wully!” she exclaimed. “And how’s[196] Chirstie the day? We missed you yesterday. She had too much fever, I doubt——”
“She’s better. She’s at mother’s. Where’s everybody?”
“Your uncle’s at the McNairs’.”
Trying to hide that skunk, was she!
“I want to see Peter!”
“What Peter?” she asked with a start.
“Your Peter!”
“My Peter!”
“Yes!” She needn’t think she could work that!
“Did you think he was here, Wully?” she asked, hurt.
“John saw him last night,” he cried accusingly.
“What John?”
“Our John! He saw him last night!”
“Saw who?”
“Saw your Peter!” Could it be——
“Saw my Peter!”
“He came home with him last night as far as the McTaggerts’!”
“Last night!”
“Yes!”
“With my Peter!”
“Yes!” stammered Wully.
Peter had never got home. There was no doubt about that.
Libby Keith was standing transfixed there. Her gray face began working.
Suddenly she put her hand up to her head, and gave a moan.
[197]“He’s destroyed! He never got to me!”
She started and ran past Wully in the path, and had climbed into his wagon before he could stop her. She gave his hitched horses such a slap with the lines that they plunged strongly. He sprang to get them before they broke away. He jumped to his place and seized the lines.
“You can’t go with me!” he shouted at her. He couldn’t throw her out of the wagon, and the horses were all he could manage, thanks to her excitement. As if in obedience to the thoughts of the humans behind them, they were racing down the path towards the McCreaths’, over which Wully had just come.
“You can’t come with me!” he cried again.
She never heeded him.
“He’ll have stopped at the McCreaths’!” she said, moaning. Moaning ... and making little sounds of speed to his team, which couldn’t possibly have been tearing ahead more madly. She sat rocking back and forth, and making sounds which unmanned him, overwrought as he was by his own excitement and hatred. Through the steaming slough they plunged and splashed. He didn’t care now how quickly they came to their destination. He gave up trying to control the horses. Anything to get away from that noise she was making, that anguished crooning. Neve............