Rachel had come to call on Barbara, nor did she admit to herself that her visit had anything to do with Tom. But she found herself in an attitude to which she was unaccustomed. From the moment that Tom had been charged with murder her liking for him increased. The question of his guilt or innocence did not disturb her—except in so far as it jeoparded his life; he was at least a dashing fellow, out of the common run. And now that he had been acquitted, and was a hero of everybody, Rachel found in herself a passion that was greater than her vanity, and that overmastered even her prudence. She was tormented by her thoughts of Tom in the day, she dreamed of him at night. Tom would not come to her, and she felt herself at length drawn by a force she could not resist to go to him.
Barbara asked Rachel to stay to dinner, and promised that Tom would put away her horse as soon as he knew that she had come. This was but the common hospitality of the country, but Barbara hoped that Rachel's presence might evoke Tom's old buoyant self again. And so, while Barbara sat on the loom-bench weaving a web of striped linsey, Rachel sat near her, knitting. It appeared to Barbara that Rachel had undergone almost as great a change as Tom. She had lost her taciturnity. Her tongue kept pace with the click of her needles. She only broke the thread of her talk when she paused to take the end of one needle out of the quill of her knitting-case and put another in. Under color of sympathy for the Graysons in their troubles she talked of what was in her mind. How dreadful it must have been for Tom to be in jail! How anxious he must have been at the trial! How well he bore up under it all! How proud he must have been when he was acquitted! These and such remarks were web and woof of her talk, while Barbara was throwing her nimble shuttle to and fro and driving the threads home with the double-beat of her loom-comb.
By half-past 11 the early farm dinner was almost ready, and Mrs. Grayson blew a blast on the tin horn which hung outside of the door, to let Tom and Janet know that they were to come in.
When Tom heard the horn he went and led Rachel's horse to the stable, after perching Janet in the saddle; and then he delayed long enough to shuck out and give him eight or ten ears of corn. After this he came to the house and washed his hands and face in the country way, with much splash and spatter, in a basin that sat on a bench outside of the door, and Janet washed hers, imitating to the best of her ability Tom's splattering way of dashing the water about. Then the two used the towel that hung on a roller in the kitchen porch, and Tom entered the kitchen with his clothes soiled by labor and with that look of healthful fatigue which comes of plentiful exercise in the open air.
"Howdy, Rachel? All well 't your house?" This was the almost invariable formula of country politeness, and it was accompanied by a faint smile of welcome and a grasp of her hand.
"Howdy, Tom?" said Rachel, cordially. "I hope you are well." Rachel regarded him a moment, and then let her eyes droop. Had Rachel discovered that her face was at its best when her long eyelashes were lowered in this fashion, or was the action merely instinctive?
"Oh, so-so!" answered Tom, uneasily, as he seated himself with the rest at the table. Rachel sat next to him, and he treated her with hospitable politeness, but she looked in vain for any sign of his old affection. She hardly once fairly encountered his eye during the meal. He seemed more indifferent to her attractions than she had ever known any man, old or young, to be. And yet she knew that her charms had lost nothing of their completeness. That very morning she had gone into the rarely opened Albaugh parlor and examined herself in the largest looking-glass in the house—the one that hung between the parlor windows, and that had a print of Mount Vernon in the upper panel of the space inclosed between the turned frames. Her fresh and yet delicate complexion was without a speck or flaw, her large eyes were as lustrous as ever, and there was the same exquisite symmetry and harmony of features that had made her a vision of loveliness to so many men. But Tom seemed more interested in his cousin, whom he kept laughing with a little childish byplay while talking to his sister's guest. Rachel felt herself baffled, and by degrees, though treated cordially, she began to feel humiliated. When dinner was finished by a course of pumpkin pie and quince preserves served with cream, Tom pushed back his chair and explained that he was just going to begin building some rail pens to hold the corn when it should be gathered and shucked, and that he could not allow himself the usual noon-time rest. The days were getting so short, you know. Would Rachel excuse him? Barbara would blow the horn so that he could put the saddle on Rachel's horse when she wanted it. But wouldn't she stay to supper?
Rachel declined to stay to supper, and she was visibly less animated after dinner than she had been before. The conversation flagged on both sides; Barbara became preoccupied with her winding-blades, her bobbins, and her shuttle, while Rachel was absorbed in turning the heel of her stocking. By half-past 1 o'clock the guest felt bound to go home; the days were getting shorter and there was much to be done at home, she remembered. The horn was blown, and Tom led her horse out to the block and helped her to mount. As he held her stirrup for her to place her foot, it brought to his memory, with a rush, her refusal to let him ride home with her from the Timber Creek school-house after the "singing." When he looked up he saw that Rachel's mind had followed the same line of association; both of them colored at this manifest encounter of their thoughts.
"I suppose I oughtn't to have said 'no' that day at the school-house." Rachel spoke with feeling, moved more by the desperate desire she felt to draw Tom out than by any calculation in making the remark.
"Yes, you ought," said Tom. "I never blamed you."