DESOLATION
Not only did Edith's bitter cry startle poor Zell, coming to her ear as a despairing recall from the battlements of heaven might have sounded to a falling angel, but Arden Lacey was as thoroughly aroused from his painful revery as if shaken by a giant hand. He had been down to meet the boat, with many others, and was sending off some little produce from their place. He had not noticed in the dusk the closely-veiled lady; indeed, he rarely noticed any one unless they spoke to him, and then gave but brief, surly attention. Only one had scanned Zell curiously, and that was Tom Crowl. With his quick eye for something wrong in human action, he was attracted by Zell's manner. He could not make out through her thick veil who she was, in the increasing darkness, but he saw that she was agitated, and that she looked eagerly for the coming of the boat, also landward, where the road came out on the dock, as if fearing or expecting something from that quarter. But when he saw her join Van Dam, he recognized his old bar-room acquaintance, and surmised that the lady was one of the Allen family. Possessing these links in the chain, he was ready for the next. Edith's presence and cry supplied this, and he chuckled exultantly:
"An elopement!" and ran in the direction of the sound.
But Arden was already at Edith's side, having reached her almost at a bound, and was gently lifting the unconscious girl, and regarding her with a tenderness only equalled by his helplessness and perplexity in not knowing what to do with her.
The first impulse of his great strength was to carry her directly to her home. But Edith was anything but ethereal, and long before he could have passed the mile and a half, he would have fainted under the burden, even though love nerved his arms. But while he stood in piteous irresolution, there came out from the crowd that had gathered round, a stout, middle-aged woman, who said, in a voice that not only betokened the utmost confidence in herself, but also the assurance that all the world had confidence in her:
"Here, give me the girl. What do you men-folks know about women?"
"I declare, it's Mrs. Groody from the hotel," ejaculated Tom Crowl, as this delightful drama (to him) went on from act to act.
"Standin' there and holdin' of her," continued Mrs. Groody, who was sometimes a little severe on both sexes, "won't bring her to, unless she fainted 'cause she wanted some one to hold her."
A general laugh greeted this implied satire, but Arden, between anger and desire to do something, was almost beside himself. He had the presence of mind to rush to the boat-house for a bucket of water, and when he arrived with it a man had also procured a lantern, which revealed to the curious onlookers who gathered round with craning necks the pale features of Edith Allen.
"By golly, but it's one of them Allen girls," said Tom Crowl, eagerly. "I see it all now. She's down to stop her sister, who's just run away with one of those city scamps that was up here awhile ago. I saw her join him and take his arm on the boat, but wasn't sure who she was then."