Inside the great, high-ceilinged house Terry stood a while in somber reflection, then shrugged his trim shoulders and passed through the shadowy rooms out into the barn. In five minutes he had cleaned and oiled his rifle, but an hour passed while he carefully removed the pelt and tacked it taut upon a stretching board.
He was in the library, reading, when his sister and brother-in-law came downstairs in response to the dinner bell. Susan and her husband, Ellis Crofts, had lived in the old mansion since their marriage two years previously, rather against Ellis' desires. He had wished to set up an establishment of his own, but had yielded to Susan's pleadings and Terry's sincere letter from college asking him not to be instrumental in closing up a house that had been lived in continuously by the Terrys of four generations.
They had been among the last to emerge from church, but had come out in time to see Terry as he opened the gate, and had heard enough of the murmured comment to understand its significance. It had been difficult for them to control their emotions as they kept slow step with the throng down the broad sidewalk. Susan, mortified but loyal to the core, had set her face in defiant smile lest she burst into tears: Ellis, devoted to Terry but tickled by the situation, had smothered his snickers in protracted fits of coughing.
Terry threw aside a handbook on the curing of pelts and rose at their entrance, smiling:
"Well, do you good folks think you are safe in sitting at the same table with an unrepentant sinner?"
Susan had been crying. "Oh, Dick! Why did you do it? How do you do such things?"
He waved his hand in humorous deprecation. "Easy. It's the simplest thing I do. It isn't difficult if you have a knack for it."
"But, Dick, it's no joke. I saw the three elders of our church—Ballard, Remington and Van Slyke—talking about it, and they were very bitter. And you know they can expel any church member."
Terry made no answer save to put his arm around each and lead them into the dining room. But Susan was not content.
"Dick, I wish you would explain it to Ballard or Van Slyke. They are influential men and both are very religious."