"Go back?" He stared at her.
"Yes. What we've just said shows me. Nothin's more likely than his comin' up here. He might reason it out. He knows I wouldn't go to any o' the neighbors, an' he'd know I wouldn't let baby ketch his death, a night like this, the storm an' all. An' if he found me here locked in, even if there wa'n't nobody here with me, I dunno what he'd do. Burn the house down, I guess, over my head."
The last she said absently. She was arranging the blanket about her with an anxious care, evidently making it so secure that she need not use her hands in holding. They would be given to the baby.
"Burn my house down, will he? Let him try it," said Raven, under his breath.
She looked at him in a calm-eyed reproach that was all motherly.
"We mustn't have no trouble," said she. "I dunno what I should do if I brought that on you."
"What does the man mean," Raven broke out, chiefly to attract her attention and keep her there under shelter, "by going dotty half the time and the other half butting in and asking people if they're saved?"
"Did he ask you?" she inquired. She nodded, as if it were precisely what might have been expected. "I s'pose he thinks he has to. He's a very religious man."
"Religious!" Raven muttered. "Does he have to do the other thing, too: go off his nut?"
She was looking at him gravely. Suddenly it came to him he must be more sympathetic in his attitude. He must not let her feel rebuffed, thinking he did not understand.