To Keith Susan told what she had learned.
"They say he utterly refuses to see any one outside the family; an' that he'd rather not see even his own folks—that he's always askin' 'em to let him alone."
"Is he ill or wounded otherwise?" asked Keith.
"No, he ain't hurt outwardly or infernally, except his eyes, an' he says that's the worst of it, one woman told me. He's as sound as a nut, an' good for a hundred years yet. If he'd only been smashed up good an' solid, so's he'd have some hope of dyin' pretty quick, he wouldn't mind it, he says. But to live along like this—!—oh, he's in an awful state of mind, everybody says."
"I can—imagine it," sighed Keith. And by the way he turned away Susan knew that he did not care to talk any more.
An hour later Mrs. McGuire hurried into Susan's kitchen. Mrs. McGuire was looking thin and worn these days. From her half-buttoned shoes to her half-combed hair she was showing the results of strain and anxiety. With a long sigh she dropped into one of the kitchen chairs.
"Well, Mis' McGuire, if you ain't the stranger!" Susan greeted her cordially.
"Yes, I know," sighed Mrs. McGuire. "But, you see, I can't leave—him." As she spoke she looked anxiously through the window toward her own door. "Mr. McGuire's with him, now, so I got away."
"But there's Bess an' Harry," began Susan,
"We don't leave him with the children, ever," interposed Mrs. McGuire,
with another hurried glance through the window. "We—don't dare to.
You see, once we found—we found him with his father's old pistol. Oh,
Susan, it—it was awful!"