"Lieutenant Scoville dead!" exclaimed Mrs. Whately looking shocked and sad.
"Yes, so Chunk told his granny."
Mrs. Whately was troubled indeed. Perhaps there had been much more than she had suspected. If so, this fact would account for the girl's extreme prostration. To bring these tidings might have been one of Chunk's chief motives in venturing on his brief visit. Miss Lou might know all about the visit and even have seen Chunk herself. If this were true, punishment of those who were in a sense her accomplices would be all the more disastrous. The perplexed matron felt that she must have more time to think and to acquire fuller knowledge of the affair.
"Brother," she said finally, "you are the guardian of Louise and in authority. She is now helpless and at present quiet. If quiet of mind and body can be maintained long enough she will no doubt get well. In a sense I am now her physician, and I say as Surgeon Ackley said of his patients, she cannot be disturbed. I positively forbid it. Dr. Pelton who must soon be here will take the same ground. Public opinion will support him and me in holding you responsible if you order anything endangering your ward's life and health at this time. Mrs. Waldo and her son would be witnesses. How far the former is acquainted with affairs we do not know. She watched with Louise all last night. If you act hastily you may be sorry indeed. I am trying kindness and conciliation with my people and they are doing better. I fear your policy is mistaken. Chunk is gone and beyond punishment. It is asking much to expect that his grandmother and the girl who loves him after her fashion would give information against him. It would seem that only the two slaves and Perkins know of this visit. Affairs are bad enough with you as it is and you can easily make them much worse. If you must punish for effect, take some stout field hand who is insubordinate or lazy. At any rate I love Louise and hope some day to call her daughter, and I will not have her life endangered. That's all I have to say."
Mr. Baron's flame of anger had died out. His views had not been changed by his harsh experience, but he had been compelled to see that there were times when he could not have his own way. So he said testily, "Well, well, we'll have to let the matter rest a while, I suppose."
Mrs. Whately departed. Mrs. Baron put her thin lips together in a way which meant volumes, and went out on her housekeeping round, giving orders to Zany in sharper, more metallic tones than usual. The delinquent herself had overheard enough of the conversation to learn that the evil day had at least been put off and to get some clew as to the future.
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHUNK PLAYS SPOOK
Since Mr. Baron had yielded for the present, Mrs. Whately was glad nothing need be said to the physician concerning their affairs. His positive injunction of quiet was sufficient, and now that Mr. Baron was impressed with its need and had had time for sober second thought, he concluded that he had trouble enough on hand as it was. He felt that every quiet day gained was so much toward securing the absolutely essential crops. Perkins was therefore summoned and the situation in part explained.
The overseer was in unusual good-humor over the death of Scoville, and if Chunk had escaped finally, there was compensation in the thought of having no more disturbance from that source. So, fortunately for poor Zany, avarice came to the fore and Perkins agreed that the best thing to do was to bend every energy to "making the crops," using severity only in the furtherance of this end.