The same wonder seized Christine. Where could the unhappy, distraught creature have been hiding while the trial of Roddy was in process?
"What happened then?"
"We just went into the sitting-room, and Mr. Saxby got the box and the knobkerries and his revolver, and mamma said, 'Now, Roddy, there is a snake in that box, and I want you to prove you are not a coward like last night by taking off the lid.'" He shuddered violently. "But I couldn't. Oh, Miss Chaine, am I a coward?" he pleaded.
"No, darling; you are not," she said emphatically. "Nobody in their senses would touch a box with a snake in it. It was very wrong to ask you to."
He looked at her gratefully.
"Then you opened the window. Oh, how glad I felt! It was just like as if God had sent you, for my heart felt as if it was calling out to you all the time. Perhaps you heard it and that made you come?"
"I did, Roddy," she said earnestly, "I ran all the way from the outhouse, because I felt you were in need of me."
They were nearly home when they saw Saltire and his boys close beside their path. Roddy was urgent to stop and talk, but Christine made the fact that heavy rain-drops were beginning to fall an excuse for hurrying on, and indeed in Saltire's face there was no invitation to linger, for, though he smiled at Roddy, Christine had never seen him so cold and forbidding-looking.
"He knows that I know," she thought, "and, base as he is, that disturbs him." The bitter thought brought her no consolation. She felt desolate and alone, like one lost in a desert, with a great task to accomplish and no friend in sight or sign in the skies. In the house, she collected the little girls, and they spent the rest of the afternoon together. The storm had broke suddenly, and the long-threatened rain came at last, lashing up the earth and battering on the window-panes amid deafening claps of thunder and a furious gale of wind.
When bath-time came for the children, Christine stayed with them until the last moment, superintending Meekie. She would have given worlds to avoid going in to dinner that night. No one could have desired food less, or the society of those with whom she must partake of it. Yet she felt that it would be a sign of weakness and a concession to the enemy if she stayed away, so she dressed as usual and went in to face the dreary performance of sitting an hour or so with people whom she held in fear as well as contempt, for she knew not from moment to moment what new offence she might have to meet. Only great firmness of spirit and her natural good breeding sustained her through that trying meal.