She went again to the door and looked out into a world that the shadows had taken, save where the horizon glowed with a pallid green at the edge of darkness. Leaning limply against the uprights of the frame and clasping her hands to her bosom, she distrusted her senses when she fancied she heard voices and saw two horsemen draw up at the stile and swing down from their saddles. Then she crumpled slowly down, and when Aaron and Parish Thornton reached the house they found her lying there insensible.
They carried her to the four-poster bed and chafed her wrists and poured white whiskey between her pale lips until she opened her eyes in the glow of the lighted lamp.
"Did they hearken ter ye?" she whispered, and the man nodded his head.
"I compassed what I aimed at," he told her, brokenly, "but when I seed ye layin' thar, I feared me hit hed done cost too dear."
"I'm all right now," she declared five minutes later; "I war jest terrified about ye. I had nervous treemors."
The stars were hanging low and softly magnified when Aaron Capper mounted to ride away, and at the stile he leaned in his saddle and spoke in a melancholy vein.
"I seeks ter be a true Christian," he said, "an' I ought ter be down on my marrow-bones right now givin' praise an' thanksgivin' ter ther Blessed Lord, who's done held back ther tormints of tribulation, but—" he broke off there and his voice trailed off into something like an internal sob—"but yit hit seems ter me like es ef my three boys air sleepin' res'less an' oneasy-like in th'ar graves ternight."
Parish Thornton laid a hand on the horseman's knee.
"Aaron," he admitted, "I was called on ter give a pledge of faith over yon—an' I promised ter bide my time, too. I reckon I kin feel fer ye."
Informal and seemingly loose of organization was that meeting of the next afternoon when three Harpers and three Doanes met where the shade of the walnut tree fell across dooryard and roadway. The sun burned scorchingly down, and waves of heat trembled vaporously along the valley, while over the dusty highway small flocks of white and lemon butterflies hung drifting on lazy wings. From the deep stillness of the forest came the plaintive mourning of a dove.