The man beside him shivered and his hand roamed nervously towards his breast.
"Did Jan, the Dutchman you speak of, fall in by accident, or did he—throw himself over—from homesickness, or some such cause?"
"Wa'al we don't say; on account of his old mother, you know, we don't say. It was called accident."
The other man rose and walked restlessly to the window.
"Half the town is up," he muttered. "The lanterns go by like fire-flies. Poor Ransom! It's a hopeless job, I fear." And again his hand wandered to that breast pocket where the edge of a document could be seen. "I have half a mind to go out myself; anything is better than sitting here."
But he sat down just the same. Mr. Harper was no longer a young man.
"The storm's bating," observed the one.
"But not the cold. Throw on a stick; I'm freezing."
The other man obeyed; then looking up, stared. A girl stood before them in the doorway. Anitra, with cheeks ablaze and eyes burning, her traveling dress flapping damp about her heels, and on her head the red shawl she preferred to any hat. Behind her shoulder peered the anxious face of Mrs. Deo.
"I'm going out," cried the former in the loud and unmodulated voice of the deaf. "He don't come back! he don't come back! I'm going to see why."