Down the garden path from the garage came the little group: Colter, the man on the place, bearing the small figure, eyes languidly fluttering, drenched in clammy camping things. Dunstan, stony and snappish, was carrying the picnic impedimenta. Shipman, an amused look in his eyes, stood about wondering whether he hadn't better get out, yet taking curious pleasure in watching Sard's selfless efficiency. On encountering Miss Aurelia in the dim hall, he pulled himself together.
"Oh!" gasped the rabbity mouth, "you will tell me, perhaps. There is no danger. You are a doctor?" Sard had brushed by her aunt, refusing to answer the torrents of questions. Miss Aurelia was now almost in tears.
"No danger." Shipman's voice, full of his controlled human tenderness, always influenced people at once. It surrounded Miss Aurelia like a wall against which the shaky lady leaned like a slender wandering vine of femininity. She now leaned some more, and inquired, "I thought they—you see, we know very little about the man Colter—was it—did he attack her?" Miss Aurelia, with sick tremulousness, put the question and Shipman's eyes half gleamed with amusement. The lawyer knew what a curious charnel house the mind of a good country woman could be. He knew the horrors this poor lady had visualized and tried to relieve her anxiety. His polished concern soothed her enormously.
"Your man Colter was very clever," he observed quietly, "and resourceful. Quite a superior person, I should say. He got to Miss Gerould first. The rest of us had not heard her screams. She had floundered into a deep bog and then fainted from fear, so that the thing might have been pretty nasty. Then Colter got stuck himself and we had to pry them both out. Rather muddy work." Shipman held out his hands, on which the swamp muck still left traces. His clothes were stained with boggy ooze.
"You—you are telling me the truth?" gasped Miss Aurelia excitedly. "The Judge will demand the exact truth, and you—you are a stranger. I can't be sure." She was shaking quite pitifully.
Shipman looked soberly down on her. "H'm!" he breathed. "H'm, hysteria, and not all from the anxiety, either." What had gotten this flabby little soul with the pretty complexion and hair into this state? Surely not five hours' absence on the part of two strong, independent girls. Had the Judge been fulminating? Suddenly the lawyer grasped something, something that he thought might become serious trouble for Sard. Shipman stood silent for a moment thinking. He asked, "By the way, is Judge Bogart in? Would this be a stupidly inconvenient time to see him? He is to try the case, I believe, in the O'Brien matter. I am counsel for the boy. I wonder——"
Miss Aurelia, enjoying her vine-like repose on the strength of the personality of the "strange man," quivered a little. "I could find out," she said. She faltered. "I assume that you are telling me the truth, that you have no—no dreadful news to give my brother?"
Shipman's tenderness was a natural and beautiful thing. It went out instinctively to troubled men and women. He took the thin, fluttering hands in his.
"Miss Bogart, it has been jolly to meet you in this informal way. I want to know you better. Please don't be troubled, please! Let me find Judge Bogart myself. You go to bed and rest."