“Don’t you do that,” he said. “Ban’t no hour for tears. Fetch in all the food in the house, an’ that bottle of wine I got for ’e. Can’t stop long, worse luck.”
“I know right well you’m an innocent man, Daniel; an’ I’ll never be happy again until I’ve done my share to prove it,” she said.
“’Tis just that will be so awful hard. Anyway I felt that the risk of a trial was too great to stand, if there was a chance to escape. And the chance offered. The lies I’ve told! But I needn’t waste time with that. Keep quiet about my visit to-night. Ban’t nobody’s business but ours. A purty honeymoon, by God! All the same, ’tis better than none.”
Minnie hastened to get the food; then, when she had brought it, he put out the light and flung the window open.
“Us must heed what may hap. They might come this way by chance, though there’s little likelihood of it.”
He listened, but there was no sound save the sigh of a distant stream and the stamp of the horse’s hoofs at the door.
“To leave you here in this forsaken place!” he cried. “You mustn’t stop. You shall not.”
“But I shall, for ’tis so good as any other,” she answered. “I’ve got to work for you while you are far off, Daniel. I’ve got to clear you; an’ I will, God helping. What a woman can do, I’ll do for ’e.”
“An’ more than any woman but you could do! I know right well that if truth is to come to light ’twill be your brave heart finds it. You an’ Sim. Trust him. He’ll do what a friend may. He’ll work for me with all his might.”
“An’ what will you do?” she asked.