Down there at that house the mob would soon come, and circumstance would convert him, at a single turn of the wheel, from humbled victim to the avenger ironically witnessing the execution of his late victor.
After a while he rose and stood experimentally on his legs.
"I reckon I kin walk now," he said, drearily, "ef so be ye lets me go slow—I hain't got much of my stren'th back yit."
"Thar hain't no tormentin' haste," responded Thornton; "we've got all night afore us."
* * *
When they reached the house, it stood mistily bulked among shadows, with its front door open upon an unlighted room.
The men had tramped down that slope in silence, and they crossed the threshold in silence, too, the captive preceding his captor; and the householder paused to bolt the door behind him.
Then, holding a vigilant eye on the forced guest who had not spoken, Thornton lighted a lamp and backed to the closed bedroom door at whose sill he had seen a slender thread of brightness. In all his movements he went with a wary slowness, as though he were held by a cord, and the cord was the line of direct glance that he never permitted to deviate from the face of his prisoner.
Now while his right hand still fondled the revolver, he groped with his left for the latch and opened the door at his back.
"Dorothy," he called in a low voice, "I wisht ye'd come in hyar, honey."