Jean repeated the legend with infinite scorn, and Hadyn laughed outright. Then growing serious again, he said:
“Perhaps a better record of Jabe’s true character is preserved in his neighbors’ memory of him, and I should think that Mrs. Raulsbury might now draw her first free breath. It is true that a man’s death can sometimes bring oblivion of his evil deeds. Poor old Baltie might have told a few of Jabe’s, but even had he possessed human speech I doubt if he would have so employed it. Baltie was a gentleman. And, Little Sister, as a gentleman he must have a monument. Yes, I mean it. A shaft shall mark the old horse’s resting-place down there in the garden, and I shall have it erected; it is the least I can do under the circumstances. Don’t say anything about it to anyone. What would you like inscribed on it, dear?”
As Hadyn talked in his deep, softly-modulated voice, Jean’s face grew radiant. At his concluding question she clasped his hand in both of hers and pressed her lips to it again and again, exclaiming:
“No one but you would ever have understood! No, not anyone. You have always understood; right from the very first day I knew you. Baltie would never have been saved on that awful day, or ever have been mine at all, if it hadn’t been for you, Champion, and oh, how hard, hard, hard I love you for it. Please don’t ever go away from us; I couldn’t live without you now; none of us could; you’ll be just one of us always, won’t you, Champion?”
Jean was too deeply in earnest to be aware that Hadyn’s face was flushing, or of the strange expression creeping into his eyes: a light of wonderful tenderness and yearning. He looked steadily into the eyes regarding him so earnestly as he said:
“Little Sister, do you realize that your home is the only real home I have known in many years? That when you and Eleanor and Constance agreed to share with me ‘a part of Mother,’ as you so sweetly expressed it, you made me your debtor forever and ever? Can you understand how very dear that little Mother of yours is to me, or how much her daughters’ welcome into their home has done to spare me a great many lonely hours? True, there are many friends in the outer world, but that house was once my Mother’s home, you know, and all my boyhood was spent in it. To go back to it under almost any conditions would seem almost like entering my own doors, but to be welcomed to it as I have been makes it—well, some day you may understand just what it does make it, little girl. And now I want to tell you something else: You miss old Baltie, I know, and nothing can ever quite fill his place for you, but your heart is big, true and warm enough to hold another, isn’t it? For some time I have been dissatisfied with the care given Comet down in that South Riveredge boarding stable. They are careless in grooming him, and someone, I can’t find out which man, is not treating him kindly. Comet never knew the meaning of a harsh or impatient word until he went there, never feared a blow——”
“Strike Comet!” cried Jean, all her sense of justice outraged.
“Not exactly strike him, I think, but there are many ways of making a high-strung, thoroughbred horse’s life a torture. A sudden slap when grooming him, a shout if he does not step around briskly, or even a blow on his muzzle with the curry-comb. They may not inflict any great amount of pain, but they soon get on his nerves, and the next thing we know we have a horse that starts and plunges at the first sharp word; jerks his head up if anyone raises a hand toward it; shrinks at the sight of a curry-comb as from an instrument of torture. Comet never before manifested any of those signs, but now I’m beginning to notice them, and I don’t like it a little bit. I wouldn’t have that horse ruined for ten times his price in dollars, and so I’m going to see what I can do to place him where all chance of it will be removed.”
“Where, where are you going to send him?” cried Jean, clasping her hands in her eagerness.
“How would you like to have him come and live down yonder with you?” asked Hadyn, nodding toward Jean’s home, which could be seen from their woodland nook.