“There isn't anything—yet. He sent the telegram to mamma. I shall stay with you, now, no matter what you say.” She sat beside him and put her head down on his shoulder, and though for a moment he appeared not to notice it, when Minnie came out on the porch, hearing her father at the door, the old scholar had put his arm about the girl and was stroking her fair hair softly.
Briscoe glanced at them, and raised a warning finger to his daughter, and they went tiptoeing into the house, where the judge dropped heavily upon a sofa with an asthmatic sigh; he was worn and tired. Minnie stood before him with a look of pale inquiry, and he shook his head.
“No use to tell them; but I can't see any hope,” he answered her, biting nervously at the end of a cigar. “I expect you better bring me some coffee in here; I couldn't take another step to save me. I'm too old to tear around the country horseback before breakfast, like I have to-day.”
“Did you send her telegram?” Minnie asked, as he drank the coffee she brought him. She had interpreted “coffee” liberally, and, with the assistance of Mildy Upton (whose subdued nose was frankly red and who shed tears on the raspberries), had prepared an appetizing table at his elbow.
“Yes,” responded the judge, “and I'm glad she sent it. I talked the other way yesterday, what little I said—it isn't any of our business—but I don't think any too much of those people, somehow. She thinks she belongs with Fisbee, and I guess she's right. That young fellow must have got along with her pretty well, and I'm afraid when she gives up she'll be pretty bad over it; but I guess we all will. It's terribly sudden, somehow, though it's only what everybody half expected would come; only we thought it would come from over yonder.” He nodded toward the west. “But she's got to stay here with us. Boarding at Sol Tibbs's with that old man won't do; and she's no girl to live in two rooms. You fix it up with her—you make her stay.”
“She must,” answered his daughter as she knelt beside him and patted his coat and handed him several things to eat at the same time. “Mr. Fisbee will help me persuade her, now that she's bound to stay in spite of him and the Sherwoods, too. I think she is perfectly grand to do it. I've always thought she was grand—ever since she took me under her wing at school when I was terribly 'country' and frightened; but she was so sweet and kind she made me forget. She was the pet of the school, too, always doing things for the other girls, for everybody; looking out for people simply heads and heads bigger than herself, and so recklessly generous and so funny about it; and always thoughtful and—and—pleasant——”
Minnie was speaking sadly, mechanically; but suddenly she broke off with a quick sob, sprang up and went to the window; then, turning, cried out:
“I don't believe it! He knew how to take care of himself too well. He'd have got away from them.”
Her father shook his head. “Then why hasn't he turned up? He'd have gone home after the storm if something bad wasn't the matter.”
“But nothing—nothing that bad could have happened. They haven't found—any—anything.”