Gilbert, however, when he saw her worn, anxious face, the eyes, like those of a dumb animal, lifted to his with an appeal which she knew not how to speak, felt a pang of compassionate sympathy.
“Deborah!” he said, “you don't look well; come into the house and warm yourself!”
“No!” she cried, “I won't darken your door till you've heerd what I've got to say. Go 'way, Sam; I want to speak to Mr. Gilbert, alone.”
Gilbert made a sign, and Sam sprang down the ladder, to the stables under the threshing-floor.
“Mayhap you've heerd already,” she said. “A blotch on a body's name spreads fast and far. Mine was black enough before, God knows, but they've blackened it more.”
“If all I hear is true,” Gilbert exclaimed, “you've blackened it for my sake, Deborah. I'm afraid you thought I blamed you, in some way, for not preventing my loss; but I'm sure you did what you could to save me from it!”
“Ay, lad, that I did! But the devil seemed to ha' got into him. Awful words passed between us, and then—the devil got into me, and—you know what follered. He wouldn't believe the money was your'n, or I don't think he'd ha' took it; he wasn't a bad man at heart, Sandy wasn't, only stubborn at the wrong times, and brung it onto himself by that. But you know what folks says about me?”
“I don't care what they say, Deborah!” Gilbert cried. “I know that you are a true and faithful friend to me, and I've not had so many such in my life that I'm likely to forget what you've tried to do!”
Her hard, melancholy face became at once eager and tender. She stepped forward, put her hand on Gilbert's arm, and said, in a hoarse, earnest, excited whisper,—
“Then maybe you'll take it? I was almost afeard to ax you,—I thought you might push me away, like the rest of 'em; but you'll take it, and that'll seem like a liftin' of the curse! You won't mind how it was got, will you? I had to git it in that way, because no other was left to me!”