The minister from the doorstep of the parsonage watched the stooped
figure as it shambled down the street. The rain was still falling in
torrents. The thought crossed his mind that the old man might not be
able to compass the two miles or more of country road. Then he got into
his raincoat and followed.
“My umbrella isn’t of the best,” he said, as he overtook the toiling
figure; “but I should have offered it.”
Andrew Bolton muttered something unintelligible, as he glanced up at
the poor shelter the young man held over him. As he did not offer to
avail himself of it the minister continued to walk at his side,
accommodating his long free stride to the curious shuffling gait of the
man who had spent eighteen years in prison. And so they passed the
windowed fronts of the village houses, peering out from the dripping
autumnal foliage like so many watchful eyes, till the hoarse signal of
a motor car halted them, as they were about to cross the street in
front of the Brookville House.
From the open door of the car Lydia Orr’s pale face looked out.
“Oh, father,” she said. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
She did not appear to see the minister.
Bolton stepped into the car with a grunt.
“Glad to see the old black Maria, for once,” he chuckled. “Don’t you
recognize the parson, my dear? Nice fellow—the parson; been having
quite a visit with him at the manse. Old stamping-ground of mine, you
know. Always friendly with the parson.”
Wesley Elliot had swept the hat from his head. Lydia’s eyes, blue and
wide like those of a frightened child, met his with an anguished
question.
He bowed gravely.
“I should have brought him home quite safe,” he told her. “I intended
ordering a carriage.”
The girl’s lips shaped formal words of gratitude. Then the obedient
humming of the motor deepened to a roar and the car glided swiftly
away.
On the opposite corner, her bunched skirts held high, stood Miss Lois
Daggett.
“Please wait a minute, Mr. Elliot,” she called. “I’ll walk right along
under your umbrella, if you don’t mind.”
Wesley Elliot bowed and crossed the street. “Certainly,” he said.
“I don’t know why I didn’t bring my own umbrella this morning,” said
Miss Daggett with a keen glance at Elliot. “That old man stopped in the
library awhile ago, and he rather frightened me. He looked very odd and
talked so queer. Did he come to the parsonage?”
“Yes,” said Wesley Elliot. “He came to the parsonage?”
“Did he tell you who he was?”
He had expected this question. But how should he answer it?
“He told me he had been ill for a long time,” said the minister
evasively.
“Ill!” repeated Miss Daggett shrilly. Then she said one word: “Insane.”
“People who are insane are not likely to mention it,” said Elliot.
“Then he is insane,” said Miss Daggett with conviction.
Wesley looked at her meditatively. Would the truth, the whole truth,
openly proclaimed, be advisable at this juncture, he wondered. Lydia
could not hope to keep her secret long. And there was danger in her
attempt. He shuddered as he remembered the man’s terrible words, “Twice
I have been tempted to knock her down when she stood between me and the
door.” Would it not be better to abandon this pretense sooner, rather
than later? If the village knew the truth, would not the people show at
least a semblance of kindness to the man who had expiated so bitterly
the wrong he had done them?
“If the man is insane,” Miss Daggett said, “it doesn’t seem right to me
to have him at large.”
“I wish I knew what to do,” said Elliot.
“I think you ought to tell what you know if the man is insane.”
“Well, I will tell,” said Elliot, almost fiercely. “That man is Andrew
Bolton. He has come home after eighteen years of imprisonment, which
have left him terribly weak in mind and body. Don’t you think people
will forgive him now?”
A swift vindictiveness flashed into the woman’s face. “I don’t know,”
said she.
“Why in the world don’t you know, Miss Daggett?”
Then the true reason for the woman’s rancor was disclosed. It was a
reason as old as the human race, a suspicion as old as the human race,
which she voiced. “I have said from the first,” she declared, “that
nobody would come here, as that girl did, and do so much unless she had
a motive.”
Elliot stared at her. “Then you hate that poor child for trying to make
up for the wrong her father did; and that, and not his wrongdoing,
influences you?”
Miss Daggett stared at him. Her face slowly reddened. “I wouldn’t put
it that way,” she said.
“What way would you put it?” demanded Elliot mercilessly. He was so
furious that he forgot to hold the umbrella over Miss Daggett, and the
rain drove in her hard, unhappy face. She did not seem to notice. She
had led a poisoned life, in a narrow rut of existence, and toxic
emotions had become as her native atmosphere of mind. Now she seemed to
be about to breathe in a better air of humanity, and she choked under
it.
“If—” she stammered, “that was—her reason, but—I always felt—that
nobody ever did such things without—as they used to say—an ax to
grind.”
“This seems to me a holy sort of ax,” said Elliot grimly, “and one for
which a Christian woman should certainly not fling stones.”
They had reached the Daggett house. The woman stopped short. “You
needn’t think I’m going around talking, any more than you would,” she
said, and her voice snapped like a whip. She went up the steps, and
Elliot went home, not knowing whether he had accomplished good or
mischief.