"I came the very moment I heard," he said. "I was staying away down at Albaugh's, and Ike was the only one of them on the camp-ground. He was so excited, and so anxious to see and hear, that he didn't get home till 2 o'clock. And only think I was sleeping quietly and you in such trouble!"
"You mustn't come in," said Barbara. "We're a disgraced family, and you mustn't come in here any more."
"What notions!" answered Hiram. "I'm here to stay. Let me ask your mother." He took hold of her arms and put her aside very gently and pushed on into the house, where Mely was pinning on Mrs. Grayson's wide cape preparatory to her ride to Moscow.
"Mrs. Grayson—" said he.
"W'y, ef 't ain't the master!" she interrupted in a trembling voice. "Mr. Mason, Tommy never killed that man, an' he hadn't ought to 'a' been took up."
"Mrs. Grayson, won't you let me stay with you a few days, now you're in trouble, and help you through?"
The old lady looked at him for a moment before she was able to reply.
"It ain't fer a schoolmaster an' a preacher's son to come here, now folks'll be a-sayin' 't we're—'t we're—murderers." This last word, uttered with tremulous hesitation, broke down her self-control, and Mrs. Grayson fell to weeping again.
"I'm going to stay by you awhile, and we'll see what can be done," said Mason. "They've taken your boy, and you'll let me fill his place a little while, won't you, now?"
"God bless you, my son!" was all the weeping woman could say; and Barbara, who had followed Hiram into the room and stood behind him while he talked to her mother, turned her face to the dark window and wept heartily for the first time in this sorrowful night.