Eperson shrugged his gaunt shoulders and transferred his resigned gaze from her face to the still fields. "Yes," he said. "A man who thinks he is a friend of mine, and--and knew of my attentions to you, he had heard it down at Ridgeville and came to me with it shortly after your husband came to Cranston to work. I asked him to drop it, and he did so. I was convinced that your husband was an honorable man and in himself worthy of the love I saw that you were giving him. I am ready to be his friend as well as yours."
"Oh, Joel, you are so--so sweet and kind and noble! You are my only friend--you and Martha Jane. Your support and friendship make me stronger and braver."
They were both silent for a moment. Then Eperson said: "But you sent for me, Tilly. There must be something that--"
"Yes," she interrupted, "there is something I want you to do for me. In fact, there is no one else to go to. Oh, Joel, I want to get word to John in some way. I was compelled to run away without seeing him, and I have been unable to get a letter to him. My father has stopped my letters both here and at the post-office. John will not know what to think, and it struck me that if _you_ would write him that I haven't turned against him, and that I will be true to him always in spite of anything my people may do, it would help him to understand the situation, and encourage him to wait till I can go back to Ridgeville."
"Of course, of course I would gladly do that, but would not this be better?" Joel looked at his watch. "You see, it is too late to get a letter off on this morning's train, but I could go in person. I could, by driving fast, leave my horse and buggy at the livery-stable and catch the train myself. In that case I could see him to-night, you know, while if I wrote a letter it would not reach him till late to-morrow, if even then."
"Oh, but could you--_would you_--really go?" Tilly asked, eagerly. "It would be so much better, for then you could explain everything thoroughly."
"Yes, but I must hurry," Eperson said, glancing at his horse. "I have only a few minutes."
"Then hurry," Tilly urged him. "You will know exactly what to say. Tell him that, no matter what is done in court, I shall still be true to him, and that I love him now more than ever."
Eperson bowed gravely. "I'll do my best," he promised. "And I'll hurry back and bring you his message. Shall I come straight here?"
"Yes, straight here," Tilly cried. "I'll find some way to talk with you in private. Oh, you are so good, so good; but hurry, Joel! Don't miss the train. Find Mr. Cavanaugh and he will show you how to reach John."
"I'll do my best, you may be sure," Eperson said, springing into his buggy and taking up his reins and whip. "Good-by."
She watched him from the gate as he dashed away in the cloud of dust raised by the hoofs of his trotting horse. She estimated the time it would take him to reach the station, and dreaded hearing too soon the whistle of the coming train's locomotive. Fully ten minutes passed before she heard the whistle. Then she was sure that Joel would get aboard in time. She was sure, because she knew the man who was serving her.
That afternoon, rather late, her parents came home. They delivered the news to her that the court had acted most promptly and she was now no longer the legal wife of John Trott. She received the information as stolidly as if it were a foregone verdict and quietly turned from her harsh-faced parents and went up to her room.
"Not his wife?" She laughed to herself as she sat on her bed and locked her limp hands in her lap. "As if a lawyer, a judge, and a few jurymen could take my husband from me as easily as that! Huh! I'd live with him without marriage if that is all there is to marriage. Joel will see him to-night. Joel will tell him how I feel, and John will wait till I can go to him. I know he loves me. I know that, and nothing else counts--nothing!"
Later she descended the stairs and went into the kitchen where her mother was at work. "Let me help you, mother," she said, taking the broom from Mrs. Whaley's hands and beginning to sweep the floor. "You must have had a lot to do while I was away."
Mrs. Whaley stood surprised for a moment, started to speak, hesitated, and then went out to where her husband sat in the slanting rays of the sun under an apple-tree.
"Where is she now?" he asked, glancing up from the open Bible and manuscript on his knee.
"She's sweeping in the kitchen."
"You don't say!" he said, laconically. "Well, when she is through in there send her here to me. I've got a straight talk for her. Things can't rest exactly on the same basis as they used to, as far as she is concerned. She has got to be on probation-like if she stays on under my roof. A great deal will depend on her conduct from now on. Folks will be inclined to slough away from us for a while. Already they blame you and me, and say we were too eager to marry her off. Nothing like this ever happened to any member of my church. It is bad in every way, and may be worse. I'm going to pray that no--no living stigma may follow it. You know what I mean. You know that I don't want to be the grandfather of Liz Trott's grandchild, and I won't--I won't if there is a just God in heaven. When Tilly is through that work send her to me."
"I'll do nothing of the sort," the woman said. "She is my child, as well as yours, and you'd better let well enough alone."
"What do you mean?" he growled, his grisly brows meeting, the old fanatical gleams in his eyes.
"I mean what I say," was the retort, deliberately delivered. "She was a child when she left us--she is a full-grown woman now. A woman don't live with a man even three or four days and remain the same as she was before. If you take my advice you won't nag her over this. I don't like her looks. She took the news of the divorce too quiet-like to suit me."
"Oh, that's it!" Whaley said, seriously, the flare in his eyes dying out. "That's what you are afraid of. You think she might give us the slip and get back to that scoundrel, divorce or no divorce. Well"--and he continued to frown--"that would be bad--that would be making a bad matter worse. I see your point, and you may be right. At any rate, I'll hold up for a while. Yes, yes, I'll hold up."
"I think you'd better," was the answer, as the speaker turned back into the house.
CHAPTER XXXV
The next day, in the afternoon, when Eperson had alighted from the train, he met his sister waiting for him in the buggy. "I got your message," she said, as he hurriedly approached her, brushing the dust of travel from his hat, "and here I am. What can I do to help poor Tilly?"
"Come with me to her," he said, sadly. "It may give me an opportunity to see her alone. I have already heard what was done at court, but I have even worse news for her."
He hurriedly explained as they drove along. He had met Cavanaugh and the astounded contractor had told him of John and Dora's secret departure.
The old man had wept as he said that John had taken himself away as an obstacle to his wife's happiness, and that he evidently intended to disappear completely and forever. As Cavanaugh saw it, John had taken Dora with him to rescue the child from a fate similar to his own, which was a grand and noble thing to do, "especially," the contractor had added with a gulp, "when the poor boy was already loaded down with troubles of his own."
"It will break Tilly's heart--it may kill her!" Martha Jane declared, with strong emotion. "Poor thing!"
Just before reaching Whaley's Joel said: "I may not get a good chance to see Tilly alone, and in that case we'd better not keep her in suspense.
Perhaps, after all, you could tell her even better than I."
Martha Jane nodded. "Poor Joel!" she murmured. "I see. You haven't the heart to tell her. Well, I will do it for you."
The elder Whaleys sat on the veranda. Tilly was not in sight. "I'll stay here in the buggy. You go in," Joel said. "They will let you talk to her alone. They always do."
Martha Jane got down to the ground between the parted wheels of the buggy and went into the yard.
"Where is Tilly, Mrs. Whaley?" she asked.
"Up in her room," Mrs. Whaley said. "Will you go up, or wait down here?"
"I'll run up, I guess," the visitor answered, with assumed lightness.
"Joel, wait for me. I'll be down soon."
"Won't you come in, Joel?" Mrs. Whaley asked.
"No, I thank you, Mrs. Whaley," he said. "I'll watch my horse out here."
He remained seated in the buggy, slightly bending forward. A horse-fly was teasing the shuddering back of his horse, and he deftly flicked at it with his whip till he had knocked it away. A man in a field across the road was gathering yellow pumpkins and loading them into a cart.
Joel himself had several acres of pumpkins ready for harvesting, and ordinarily he would have been interested in the quantity and quality of this farmer's product, but there were graver things on his mind now.
Surely Martha Jane was staying a long time up-stairs. Had she put it delicately enough? Had she omitted to mention the fact of Trott's taking the child away with him? Joel had intended emphasizing that, for it was a thing any wife would be proud to hear of the man she had married. The time dragged even more slowly now. Old Whaley left his seat, walked around to the well, drew up a bucket of water, and drank from the bucket itself, tilting it forward with both his hands. Then Mrs. Whaley went into the house. Presently Martha Jane came down the stairs and out into the yard.
"Good-by, Mrs. Whaley," she called out. "I must be going now."
"Good-by, Martha Jane!" from within the house. "Come again when you find the time."
"I will, thank you, Mrs. Whaley. You must come out to see mother. She never gets into town, and you mustn't count visits with her."
There was a response to this which Joel did not hear, for he was studying his sister's face as he stood ready to help her into the buggy.
"Well?" he said, as they started to drive on. "What did you do?"
"Oh, don't ask me--don't ask me!" Martha Jane's eyes were filling, her lips twitching. "Oh, Joel, it was awful--simply awful! I'm glad you did not try to tell her. She stood tottering pitifully and looking as white as a dead person. I thought she was going to faint, and would have called her mother if she hadn't stopped me. It seemed to take away all the hope she had left. She sees it exactly as Mr. Cavanaugh does--that her husband intends to disappear for good and all. She thinks it was for her sake, too. She said so. She declared she did not blame him at all, and when I told her about that child she said she understood that, too, and knew he did it for the little girl's good--that the child was facing a terrible future."