“Would you mind going over there? You could make up some excuse; you could say you wanted to borrow a book or something.”
“Why, it’s after half-past ten,” Harlan said, astonished. “What on earth do you want me to go over there for, as late as this?”
“Well, it’s why I am a little worried,” she explained. “I’d been standing at the window a long while before you came, Harlan; and about half an hour ago I thought I saw Dan and someone else come along the sidewalk and stop at our gate. At any rate two men did stop at the gate.”
“You recognized Dan?”
“No; it was too dark and raining too hard. I thought at first perhaps it was you with someone you knew and had happened to walk along with. I went to the front door and opened it, but I could only make out that they seemed to be talking and gesturing a good deal, and I thought I recognized your cousin Fred Oliphant’s voice. I waited, with the door open, but they didn’t come in, and pretty soon they went on. I called, ‘Dan! Oh, Dan!’ but the wind was blowing so I don’t suppose they heard me. Then I thought I saw the same two going up the Shelbys’ walk to the front veranda. They must have gone in, because a minute or so afterwards the downstairs windows over there were lighted up. Couldn’t you make some excuse to go over and see if it’s Dan?”
Harlan jumped up from his chair by the fire. “It just might be Dan,” he said, frowning. “I don’t think so, but——”
“I’m so afraid it is!” Mrs. Oliphant exclaimed. “I don’t like to bother you, and it may be a little awkward for you, going in so late, but you can surely think of some reasonable excuse, if it isn’t Dan. If it is, do get him away as quickly as you can; I’d be terribly upset to have him make an exhibition of himself before Martha—she’s always had such a high opinion of him.”
“Yes, she has!” Harlan interrupted dryly, as he strode out into the hall; and he added: “I don’t suppose Lena’d be too pleased!”
“She’d be furious,” his mother lamented in a whisper. She helped him to put on his wet waterproof coat, and continued her whisper. “She’s never been able to like poor Martha, and if she heard he went there to-night when she’s still so sick, she—she——”
“Yes, she would!” Harlan said grimly, finishing the thought for her. “You might as well go to bed now, mother.”