"You better set down while you wait fo' what the doctor has to say," he advised in a kindly growl. "Emergencies had oughter be met standin' and suspense sittin'. You've stood up pretty good against the first, reckon you can do the right thing by the second.... There's a box strong enough to hol' you, over there."
Baird brought it and sat down opposite Ben.
"You're about as wet and all in as I am," he remarked, in answer to the kindly note in Ben's voice. The big creature was just as Baird had seen him last, wet and muddy and queerly mottled about his cheeks and nose, red patches upon the nearest approach to pallor his tanned face could attain.
"A wettin' ain't nothin' to me," Ben said, "but I done somethin' the same things you done last night." Then, either to ease Baird's suspense or for some other reason, he continued: "I was tellin' you last night it was me foun' the hole in the bridge an' what was below, an' we agreed I must have come on it a little after you'd took Ann away.... You see, when I run to Westmo' to tell Judith about Edward, she says, 'Ben, Garvin ain't here. You take the word to the Copeleys first, go quick, then try to meet up with Garvin.' I done what she says. I had a hard time findin' Garvin, though. I got the first word of him at the club. Everybody were gone from there to tell everybody else what a Westmo' had done to hisself, an' the cook were the only one left. He said a while befo' he'd heard some one gettin' out Garvin's automobile from the shed—seems he'd been keepin' it there, at the club. The cook reckoned it was Garvin that some one must have tol' Garvin what had happened, an' he'd took the automobile so's to get to Westmo' in a hurry. I started down the Post-Road then, an' I come upon what had happened. My lord!" Ben paused, then went on. "Well, I dragged some rails acrost the road an' went fo' help, an' we got the las' man bearin' the name of Westmo' back to his house."
In spite of his efforts, Ben's voice had grown unsteady, and he whittled violently and in silence for a few moments, until speech escaped him: "It begun to rain on us befo' we got to Westmo', like the sky were weepin' over the sins of them that brung us into the world. That po' thing we was carryin'—'tweren't none of his fault. An' we builds jails an' madhouses fo' the like of him, an' jest goes right on fillin' them.... Garvin weren't never jest right, Mr. Baird. Them two youngest Westmo's—Sarah an' Garvin—'twere their pa should answer fo' them ... an' yet, what right hev I talkin' like that! There didn't no one teach sense to men like the ole colonel an' ole Mr. Penniman. I've jest got one big pity fo' every one of them—particular fo' them that's left."
"He nearly did for Ann—I'm not thinking of his forebears," Baird said bitterly.
Ben collected himself. "He was jest out of his mind—you can't judge him like you would a sane man.... You know, of co's', that Edward cared a lot for Ann and she fo' him, an' that Garvin were mad over her, like he would be, an' that she wouldn't have him. If you don't know, I'm telling you, an' fo' Ann's sake, it's a thing we ain't goin' to speak about to others. I'll tell you, too, what Ann tol' me when her an' me were talkin', befo' Sue come back. Ann tol' me she was sittin' in the dark on the porch an' Garvin come up sudden an' tol' her Edward were hurt an' dyin' an' askin' fo' her to come. He'd brought his automobile to the cedar road, an' that's what he must have been doin' when the cook heard him. I know his horse was at the club barn when I was there, because I seen it there. Ann says she went off quick with him, she weren't thinkin' of nobody but Edward, an' they started fo' the Post-Road. She didn't suspicion at first that Garvin weren't in his right mind, but when they began to tear down the Post-Road he spoke queer, an' jest befo' they struck the bridge she was sure he was clean mad. She was so scart she stood up, an' the next thing they was throwed. It was her standin' up saved her, I reckon. Jest what drove Garvin mad we'll never know. How much he knowed of what's happened, or jest what he intended to do, it's beyond us to tell, but that he was clean beside hisself, that's certain."
Baird had listened to Ben's explanation. It fitted in with much that he knew and with much that he had suspected, and he guessed that Ben could have told him a great deal more had he chosen to do so. Ben loved Ann, as a father loves his daughter, so much Baird had discovered during the night, and, also, that Ben was faithful to both the Pennimans and the Westmores. In his weariness and anxiety, Baird refused to think of it. What did it matter—if only Ann pulled through unshattered?
Baird was sick with fatigue, racked still by anxiety, and angered by Coats Penniman's neglect of his daughter. "Where were Ann's people all night—why did they leave Ann to fall into a trap like that?" he demanded.
Ben worked away at his stick. "That were a mystery to me, till Sue come. It was natural enough, though, how that happened. Coats, he had to go to the city, an' Sue, she drove in with him, early in the evenin'. They'd left word with Ann they'd be gone late. They knowed I'm always here in the evenin'—I ain't moved off this place a single evenin', not in weeks. They weren't worryin' about Ann's not bein' safe. But last evenin' I weren't here, an' you know why. Sue tells me they were drivin' Billy, an' you know what he is. Come time to get home, they had trouble with him. He's a devil, that horse, a good traveler, but that's all. He give Coats' shoulder a bad wrench. There weren't no trains they could get till near mornin', an' Sue she took the first train out an' walked up from the station, leavin' Coats to dispose of Billy and come out later. Sue were worried to death over her father an' Ann, she looked like a ghost when she come in, an' ready to drop, but she come to when she seen what trouble she'd come back to.... That's Penniman fo' you, jest like Miss Judith's stiff upper lip is Westmo'. These southern ladies, Mr. Baird, whose mothers done stood fas' while their men was bein' shot to pieces in the war—their mothers' blood's in them, all right! They'll stand up to anything, they will, an' gamble on a chance cooler nor any man!" Ben spoke with a profound admiration that dignified even his language.