Thane would have asked her a question, not knowing how women consent; John restrained him with a sign.
“Then I’ll pick you up here,” he said, setting off abruptly. “And I won’t be very long.”
When he returned with a smart bay team and a light road wagon, his own rig, the moon was sinking. Agnes was asleep on the dewy grass in Thane’s coat. He wrapped her in the rug John held out to him and lifted her to the seat. She was docile and limp, like a groggy child. John had to hold her erect until Thane got up on the other side. She sat between them.
Where the road turns abruptly out of the valley John pulled up and looked back. It was now quite dark. All that he could see was the mill, like a live malignant cinder in the eye of darkness, glowing faintly, going almost out, then spurting forth quick tongues of flame. He had the sensation of a great solitary weight rolling about in his stomach. Tears came to his eyes. Until that moment he had not known that he cared for New Damascus. His caring was like an inherited memory.
And though he knew it not, this night was the time and his exit the sign that sealed the fate of New Damascus. It was left in the hands of Enoch, who fanatically withheld it from the steel age.
“Where to?” Thane asked.
“Wilkes-Barre tonight,” said John. “Then to Pittsburgh. I’m buying a mill at Pittsburgh that I want you to take hold of. We’ll discuss it tomorrow.”
“What shape of mill?” asked Thane.
John hesitated.
“Nothing like the mill behind us,” he said.