“He stole from me,” said Miss Susan, holding up the money.
“I didn't! She's an old liar!” sobbed Lem, “and I don't care if I do say it! She wants to steal all my money all the time—”
“Look at him,” said Miss Susan. “All packed up and ready to run away! And my money in his pocket! This time there'll be no nonsense, I tell you. He'll go packing off to reform school, where he belongs.”
“That's all right,” said Johnnie soothingly. “We'll see about that in the morning. The reform schools won't all close to-night. I'll go bail for Lem to-night; I 'll take him into my room. If he gets away, Miss Susan, you can send me to reform school in his place.”
There seemed nothing better to do and Johnnie led the boy away.
“Good-night, Miss Bates,” Johnnie called to Henrietta, for the affair had interrupted their tête-à-tête on the porch. “I've got to keep this young man company.”
Henrietta went down. She sat in her dark corner of the porch, staring across the street at the porch where Gay and Freeman, she knew, were sitting, and waited for Freeman.
Henrietta and Freeman had had one heated interview that night. About ten o'clock, when Henrietta was still in her room, Freeman had thrown his cigarette end from the porch and had entered the house. Miss Susan was at work in the kitchen, where he heard her, and he went up the stairs softly. While smoking his cigarette on the porch, he had come to a decision.
It was clear to him that he could not long remain in Riverbank with Carter Bruce on his trail and ready to beat him up whenever they met. Just what Carter Bruce knew he could not guess with any certainty, but he had enough respect for the young lawyer's fists and enough dread of his own past to believe that if Bruce kept on, his whole situation at Riverbank would be as unpleasant as possible, and, being so hard put to it to raise any money whatever, he saw no satisfactory reason why he should remain in the town. He went up the stairs with a coldly formed and complete intention to see whether Miss Susan had left any money in her room. If she had left any there, he meant to take it and get away from Riverbank as quickly and as thoroughly as possible, and he meant to take Gay with him if she would go.
Freeman Todder was in Miss Susan's room and had already taken the money from her purse when Henrietta opened the door. Freeman turned to look at her.