She nodded gravely.
"Say anything?"
She shook her head, and then offered, it seemed unwillingly:
"He thought he might be laid up quite a spell."
To Raven, that seemed so desirable, that he wondered at the commiseration in her voice; evidently she could be sorry for Tenney without an admixture of relief at having him safely fettered for a while.
"Well," he said, "I'll be over. And if there's anything——" he stopped and looked her in the eyes, gravely authoritative. It was the first time their two inner selves had met in such unrestrained interchange. If there was anything he could do for her, the glance said, she was to know he would do it, to the very limit of allegiance. What did her own glance say? Was there acceptance in it? Not so much that as a grave understanding and gratitude. He was her refuge, her strength. She might still go winging brokenly about the obscurity that made her life, but he was the shelter where she might take cover if she would. Their gaze broke (it was locked there an instant only) and however she felt in turning from him, Raven had the sensation of dragging his eyes away.
"I'll be over," he said, "in time to fodder and milk."
He was leaving, but she called after him:
"No, don't you come. You send Jerry."
"I can do it as well as Jerry," he answered impatiently, and again she called: