For a moment they sat looking soberly into each other's faces.
"May I suggest," Brent said, "that you abandon the idea of telephoning the sheriff? Jess isn't wanted quite yet awhile. If Potter is only wounded—maybe just scratched—he's all right. If someone found his body, there are others besides Dale who might have killed him."
"But, sir," sputtered the Colonel, "I can't harbor a murderer!"
"There's a difference between a murderer and one who righteously avenges a wrong. That's worth considering. Besides, it's a serious matter for a gentleman to give over his guest."
This, he knew, was a powerful argument and, feeling content to let it plead its own cause, quietly added: "We don't want to see him go to jail—"
"He wouldn't go to jail, sir," the Colonel quickly interrupted. "I would ask Jess to leave him here until Court convenes. He would be glad to do that for me."
"I know he would," Brent replied with all sincerity. "But we don't need a sheriff yet. Let's wait, and see what turns up!"
An expression of infinite relief came into the old gentleman's face, but his conscience was still aroused and emphatically he declared: "I'll deliver him to the law, sir, the very minute I know to a certainty that Potter is dead!" Then his eyes turned toward the house, from where by this time he thought his julep should be emerging.
That faithful institution, Uncle Zack, had come perilously near fulfilling his mission. He had walked bravely through the rooms, goblet in hand, at each turn earnestly and fervently praying to his gods that Miss Liz might not be found. Coming into the front hall, and passing "de long room"—that long room which used to ring with the merry laughs of dancers, but was now guarded as a sort of chapel for shrouded portraits—he saw its forbidding doors slightly ajar, and peered in.
Uncle Zack always avoided this room. Its subdued light; its oppressive atmosphere, invariably suggesting the image of "Ole Miss" lying there amidst banks of flowers which matched in purity her calm face; the uniform arrangement of high-backed chairs, suggesting in their white coverings a line of tombstones; the two massive crystal chandeliers, hanging like weights of an old clock which would never again be wound;—were all too much for Zack's heart and imagination. Yet the door was open, and he peered in.