The man put up his hand, fell back a moment with a dazed face, and then without a word ran for the highway, his bag of tools rattling behind him.
Never was route more ludicrously sudden. Even in her wrath Hetty looked at her lover and broke into a laugh.
"Let me skate up the canal and head him off," said he. "Half a mile will give me lead enough to slip out of these things and collar him on the highway."
"He is not worth it. Besides, he may not be going towards Kelstein: in this light we cannot see the road or what direction he takes. Let him be, dear," Hetty persuaded, as the old woman called out from her cabin that the kettle boiled. "Our time is too precious."
Then, while he yet fumed, she suddenly grew grave.
"Was it truth he was telling?"
"Truth?" he echoed.
"Yes: about Lincoln Fair?"
"Oh, the boxing-booth, you mean? Well, my dear, there was something in it, to be sure. You wouldn't have me be a milksop, would you?"
"No-o," she mused. "But I meant what he said about—about those women. Was that true?"