It would have brought a ray of comfort to Newt, had he known that Minerva had fought back her disgust for the wild and lawless picture he had made, and had asked permission to visit him in the jail. She had wanted to plead with him, as the Deacon had pleaded, though it was not for a year, but for always, that she would have begged him to bury his enmity. Perhaps, she thought, if in this hour he felt the hand-clasp of friendship, he might realize that there are better things than hatred and the blind service of hatred. But the Deacon thought it best that no one save himself should talk with Newt. He might tell too much.
"I'm right sorry," he said, and his eyes were gravely sympathetic; "but the boy's been drinkin' right smart, an' I reckon it wouldn't hardly be best for you to see him. No, it wouldn't hardly be wise."
Three days the Deacon left him there, but on each day he argued at length and kindly, pointing out that his action was the hard course of one who could not permit his sympathies to swerve him. Meanwhile, the prisoner was practically in solitary confinement, for the Falkins jailer followed the Deacon's directions, and allowed no one else to talk with him.
On the third day, Newt capitulated, and, though his promise of twelve months of forbearance was given under duress, and the Deacon knew he had incurred an enmity which would be lifelong, he knew, too, that the promise would be kept. That night Newt rode sullenly to the cabin on Troublesome, and stabled and fed the nag, and, when he had taken his place in front of the fire, he sat moodily and in unbroken silence for a half-hour, and then he looked up, and said shortly,
"Clem, I reckon I'm a-ready to do my sheer of work on the place. I'll feed the hawgs in ther mornin'."
A cold drizzle had come with nightfall; a fire had been built. One by one, the family "lay down," and from the four corners of the room came the heavy breathing of their slumber. But Minerva did not at once fall asleep, and so she knew that far into the night Newt sat gazing into the dying embers, and she covertly and shyly watched his face, very drawn and miserable.
At last, she slipped from the covers, and, coming over, laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Newt," she said in a low voice, "you're in trouble, boy—and I'm sorry."
"Thet's all right, Minervy," he answered, without moving, but into the surliness of his voice crept a trace of breaking.
Some day, of course, she must tell him exactly how responsible she had been for his failure, but just now she could not. He was wretched because he had not succeeded in repeating the infamy and the crime which had at first wrecked his life. By every theory of morals and every form of right-thinking he was beyond the pale of sympathy—and yet—Minerva Rawlins had in her veins enough of vendetta blood to understand that his suffering was genuine and that from his one view-point he had defaulted a debt of honor.