“You ain’t got no ‘past,’ that’s certain, honey,” she declared, with a delighted smile. “The woman that lived here befo’ had a past, honey. A man named Huggins lived in this house, an’ she said she’s his wife. Wife! Lawsey! No man has a wife like that! She had a past, that woman, an’ mebbe a present, too—he, he, he!
“He was the man what put the railroad through here, honey. I done hear the woman say—her name was Blanche, honey—that Huggins was one of them ultra rich. But whatever it was that ailed him, honey, didn’t help his looks none. Pig-eye, I used to call him, when I’se mad at him—which was mostly all the time—he, he, he!”
The girl’s face whitened. Was she never to escape the atmosphere she loathed? She shuddered and Martha patted her sympathetically on the shoulder.
“There, there, honey; you ain’t ’sponsible for other folks’ affairs. Jes’ you hold you’ head up an’ go about you’ business. Nobody say anything to you because you’ livin’ here.”
But Martha’s words neither comforted nor consoled the girl. She went again to her room and sat for a long time, looking out of a window. For now all the cheer had gone out of the house; the rooms looked dull and dreary—and empty, as of something gone out of them.
CHAPTER VIII—CONCERNING “SQUINT”
Marion Harlan had responded eagerly to Carrington’s fabrication regarding the rumor of Lawrence Harlan’s presence in Dawes. Carrington’s reference to her father’s sojourn in the town had been vague—he merely told her that a rumor had reached him—a man’s word, without details—and she had accepted it at its face value. She was impatient to run the rumor down, to personally satisfy herself, and she believed Carrington.
But she spent a fruitless week interrogating people in Dawes. She had gone to the courthouse, there to pass long hours searching the records—and had found nothing. Then, systematically, she had gone from store to store—making small purchases and quizzing everyone she came in contact with. None had known a man named Harlan; it seemed that not one person in Dawes had ever heard of him.
Parsons had returned to town in the buckboard shortly after noon on the day of their arrival at the new house, and she had not seen him again until the following morning. Then he had told her that Carrington had gone away—he did not know where. Carrington would not return for a week or two, he inferred.
Parsons had bought some horses. A little bay, short-coupled but wiry, belonged to her, Parsons said—it was a present from Carrington.