When the marshal returned, a few moments later, with the comforts he had promised, Nate still sat there, gray, haggard, and speechless. The kind-hearted jailer looked askance at him, and hesitated to ask him to rise that he might arrange the bunk. When he did proffer the request Nate stared at him a moment, as if unhearing, then slowly rose and looked down at the planks he had been sitting on, seemingly seeing them for the first time. Then he continued the survey, letting his eyes, already bloodshot with excitement and misery, scan the narrow place.
"So," he said finally, in a low, hoarse whisper, smiling up into the officer's face with an expression that almost started the tears even to those hardened orbs, "So, you're going to bury us both—Bill and me. Him in a grave and me in a tomb—Bill and me. I never thought 'twould be like that—Bill and me. Buried together—Bill and me." He continued to mutter the words over and over, and when the keeper left the building he shook his head sadly.
"Poor Nate! It's touchin' him in the brain, I reckon. Hope he won't lose his reasons afore the trial comes on, though. He'll need 'em then if he ever does. Blarst his foolishness! What did he mix in for, anyhow?"
CHAPTER XX.
SORROW.
Joyce had just returned from a half day in the city with Camille, whom she had been treating to some first-class music, and was just crossing the lawns to her own door, when she saw George Dalton come swiftly across the road from the park. She turned towards the walk to greet him, but her happy face fell as she saw the perturbed expression upon his.
"What is it?" she asked, looking down upon him from the ascending walk, which led somewhat steeply up to her veranda steps. "There is some trouble?"
"Yes." He gained her vicinity with a long stride, and said gently, "It's trouble beyond even your helping, this time. Lucy Hapgood's father is dead."
"Dead? Why, has he been ill? I didn't know. Why wasn't I told sooner?"