“No, it weren’t, but everyone knows it. He couldn’t prove he never did it, now could he? Tell me that.”
This essentially feminine line of argument proceeded, needless to say, from one of that sex, which was also the sex of the other party to the conversation. The latter was taking place a few yards from Elvesdon’s house, a day or two after the successful defence of the laager. The speakers were stock-raisers’ wives, of the unrefined and little-educated class.
“Well if he couldn’t prove he never did it they couldn’t prove he did, so he ought to have—what do they call it—the benefit of the doubt,” came the rejoinder, though not in any tone of real conviction.
“Benefit of the fiddlestick. Why it was like looking for a needle in a haystack trying to find her poor body among all those krantzes and holes and caves. But it’s there, you may take your oath to that. The Bible says those that take the sword shall perish by the sword, don’t it? Well here’s a case of it. Oh he’s a deep old fox and a wrong bad ’un is old Thornhill, and now he’s—”
But what he was or where—was not destined to be supplied. From the open window Edala’s voice rang out clear.
“Ladies—if it amuses you to wickedly slander my father, who may not be alive at this moment, don’t you think it would show better feeling to go and do so out of my hearing.”
The tones were cutting like a whip-lash. The girl’s face was deathly white, with a burning red spot in either cheek, and her blue eyes fairly blazed. The two women started as if they had been shot: then gasped as if they were going to say something, but couldn’t—then moved quickly away without a word; which perhaps, under the circumstances was the best course they could have adopted.
Edala turned back into the room. Evelyn’s face was as ghastly as her own. For a moment the two stood looking at each other, then Edala flung herself into a chair, dropped her arms upon the table and buried her face in her hands. The great sobs that shook her frame seemed as if they would tear it in pieces.
“Darling, don’t give way like this,” adjured Evelyn with an arm round the bowed shoulders, and brushing away the fast dropping tears from her own eyes. “Those wicked slanderous brutes—they ought to have their tongues cut out! How could they utter such shameful lies!”
But the sobs seemed to intensify. Suddenly Edala flung up her head.