“Well, I don’t know.” She looked at it doubtfully, then crumpled it tight in her fist. “I guess it’ll pass. Git a move on you, Simeon.”
The old man departed, grumbling, to the barn, and the woman drew back into the house, shutting the door carefully. Orme and Bessie heard the bolts click as she shot them home.
“Hospitable!” exclaimed Bessie, seating herself on the doorstep.
After a wait that seemed interminable, the old man came driving around the house. To a ramshackle buggy he had hitched a decrepit horse. They wedged in as best they could, the old man between them, and at a shuffling amble the nag proceeded through the gate and turned eastward.
In the course of twenty minutes they crossed railroad tracks and entered the shady streets of the village, Bessie directing the old man where to drive. Presently they came to the entrance of what appeared to be an extensive estate. Back among the trees glimmered the lights of a house. “Turn in,” said Bessie.
A thought struck Orme. If Poritol, why not the Japanese? Maku and his friends might easily have got back to this place. And if the minister had been able to telephone to his allies from Arradale, they would be expecting him.
“Stop!” he whispered. “Let me out. You drive on to the door and wait there for me.”
Bessie nodded. She did not comprehend, but she accepted the situation unhesitatingly.
Orme noted, by the light of the lamp at the gate, the shimmer of the veil that was wound around her hat.
“Give me your veil,” he said.