She opened her eyes a little later, to see Barkwell and another man leading Trevison into the front door of the Castle. The street around the car was deserted, save for two or three men who were watching her curiously. She felt her father’s arms around her, and she was led into the car, her knees shaking, her soul sick with the horror of it all.
Half an hour later, as she sat at one of the windows, staring stonily out in the shimmering sunlight of the street, she saw some of the Vigilantes returning. She shrank back from the window, shuddering.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE CALM
The day seemed to endure for an age. Rosalind did not leave the car; she did not go near her father, shut up alone in his apartment; she ate nothing, ignoring the negro attendant when he told her that lunch was served, huddled in a chair beside an open window she decided a battle. She saw the forces of reason and justice rout the hosts of hatred and crime, and she got up finally, her face pallid, but resolute, secure in the knowledge that she had decided wisely. She pitied Corrigan. Had it been within her power she would have prevented the tragedy. And yet she could not blame these people. They were playing the game honestly, and their patience had been sadly strained by one player who had persisted in breaking the rules. He had been swept away by his peers, which was as fair a way as any law—any human law—could deal with him. In her own East he would have paid the same penalty. The method would have been more refined, to be sure; there would have been a long legal squabble, with its tedious delays, but in the end Corrigan would have paid. There was a retributive justice for all those who infracted the rules of the game. It had found Corrigan.
At three o’clock in the afternoon she washed her face. The cool water refreshed her, and with reviving spirits she combed her hair, brushed the dust from her clothing, and looked into a mirror. There were dark hollows under her eyes, a haunting, dreading expression in them. For she could not help thinking about what had happened there—down the street where the Vigilantes had gone.
She dropped listlessly into another chair beside a window, this time facing the station. She saw her horse, hitched to the rail at the station platform, where she had left it that morning. That seemed to have been days ago! A period of aching calm had succeeded the tumult of the morning. The street was soundless, deserted. Those men who had played leading parts in the tragedy were not now visible. She would have deserted the town too, had it not been for her father. The tragedy had unnerved him, and she must stay with him until he recovered. She had asked the porter about him, and the latter had reported that he seemed to be asleep.
A breeze carried a whisper to her as she sat at the window: