She grew calmer after awhile, and said:
“My poor little visit was doomed from the first; I knew it, Jerome.”
“Oh, now, don’t look at it that way,” said Garwood, in a big round voice. “You’ll soon be back, father’ll be better; he’s all right. You can bring him back with you, and we’ll have a good time here all together.”
She shook her head hopelessly.
“You go telegraph, Jerome; tell them when I’m coming.”
Garwood was glad to escape to the office and the bar.
XXI
RANKIN had been at home all day, helping his wife with the washing. The larder was growing lean in the Rankin home, though Rankin himself laughed with his usual optimism, and said that it would be all right again in a few days. The evening had come and he had gone out into the yard to do his chores. Though the air was cold he was in his shirt sleeves, and he went about his work singing loudly the staves of an old hymn:
“‘There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign;
In-fi-nite day—’”