He was in the wagonette when she and Celeste came out. The place was still and deserted, even Mr. Jonas gone, for which Alexina was grateful.
Molly was on the back seat, and Celeste, gaunt and taciturn, started to mount beside her.
Molly protested. “Not you, mammy; go in front. I want Malise—not the big Malise, you know—the little one.”
The girl, taking the wraps from the old woman, got in by her mother and began to put a shawl about her. The dew was falling heavily. Molly touched her hand. “Once Alexander said to me, ‘Let Malise keep tight hold on you, Molly.’”
William Leroy was flicking the mules travelling briskly through the sandy streets, and talking to the old woman, but she was sullen and the conversation died.
Alexina’s heart was choking her. Her father—daddy—Molly had spoken to her of daddy.
And all the while Molly was talking on, feverishly, incessantly. “You must keep him away, Malise, that minister, he worries me and his eyes make me uncomfortable, following me. He makes me remember things, and I don’t want to. He says it’s his duty. He said to-night I’m not going to get well and that he had to tell me in order to save me from myself. Make him keep away from me, Malise; I’m afraid of him. I took it, that, to-night, to forget what he said; say it isn’t so, Malise—say it.”
Willy leaned back over the seat, talking in steady, everyday fashion. “There’s the moon setting ahead of us; see it, Mrs. Garnier? Everything’s so still, you say? Why, no; it’s not so still. There is a cock crowing somewhere, and that must be a gopher scuttling under the palmetto. Now, look backward. See that line of light? It’s the dawn.”