In leaving the courtroom, Jason made an attempt to attack Martin Moreland. The banker was half expecting that something of the kind might happen. He had so surrounded himself with people craving his favour that the boy was not able even to reach him.
Then Jason felt the hand of Albert Rich on his arm and he heard his voice saying: “Don’t be a fool, Jason. You can’t get at him that way. You can’t help her that way. We must make a clean job of this even if it’s a long one. We’ve got to trace this thing out and find exactly how it happened. Every one knows there’s been some underhand work somewhere.”
When Jason became more controlled, he said to Albert Rich: “Isn’t it like Junior Moreland to make this horrible trouble and then disappear and leave his father to get through with the dirty work?”
“Yes,” said Albert Rich, “it’s exactly like Junior to do that very thing.”
“The day is coming,” said Jason, “and it’s coming very speedily, when I shall be forced to kill both of those slippery snakes.”
“Hush!” cautioned Albert Rich, “I tell you that when you say such things you make a fool of yourself. You must not let people hear you. If they did, and anything happened to either one of them, those who heard would remember and your day of trouble would come. In that case, you would cease to be of any help to Mahala.”
With scarcely a thought of food or sleep, completely neglecting his work, Jason got through the first days of Mahala’s illness. When he learned that it would be a thing of long duration, that it was an hourly fight that would stretch out for weeks, he saw that the best thing he could do was to find another woman to help Jemima and himself, to be on hand as frequently as possible in order that their every need might be quickly supplied. In this extremity Jason was so obsessed in helping with the fight for Mahala’s life that he had no time to pay any attention to any one else. If he had been paying attention, he might have seen that there was something of a turning in the tide of feeling concerning Mahala. There had been many people who, in the beginning, had accepted the thought that because of her father’s disaster and her need for money, she might have done this thing, even as Junior had pityingly suggested to every one he could before leaving.
But there were a number of people in the town, who, when they stopped to think for a few days, realized the fact that Mahala was not in financial extremity. Albert Rich had discovered a piece of land belonging to her, that with cleaning up and cultivation, might become valuable. Jemima was furnishing her a roof. With her own efforts she was earning a comfortable living for herself and her mother. It was these people who began saying, at first tentatively and later with confidence, that the whole thing was another piece of dirty work on the part of the Morelands; that it was quite impossible that the daughter of Mahlon and Elizabeth Spellman should be a common thief; that it was unthinkable that the little girl who had been reared among them with such fastidious care should have developed a moral nature that could so easily be broken down.
In the days that passed while Mahala lay muttering on her pillow, there were many people who began making the journey to her door, and the door was as far as any of them ever travelled. Right there the face of Jemima, as coldly graven as any face of stone, met them, and Jemima did not mince words.
She said to Mrs. Williams flatly: “You’re about three weeks too late. The time you ought to have come and made a stand and done something was before that damned trial. You let things go on and let her be tortured to the breakin’ point and now you want to know if there’s anything you can do! Let me tell you pretty flat that there ain’t! What Mahala needs right now is cold baths and any nourishment she can take, and the loving care of people who understand her and sympathize with her, and that she’s gettin’ from me. If any of the rest of the folks is meditatin’ comin’, at this time of the day, you can tell ’em from me that I wish they’d stay away. They’re takin’ up time and they’re usin’ strength that Mahala needs!”