Joe made no comment, but led the way around the house. At the kitchen window Greening laid a restraining hand on Joe’s shoulder and stopped him, while he looked in at the corpse of Isom Chase. 121
“Him and me, we served on the same jury this afternoon,” said Sol, nodding toward the window as he turned away. “I rode to overtake him on the way home, but he had the start of me; and I was just goin’ in the gate when I heard that shot. I poled right over here. On the same jury, and now he’s dead!”
As they approached the gate Joe looked back, the events of the past few minutes and the shock of the tragedy, which had fallen as swift as a lightning stroke, stunning him out of his usual cool reasoning.
There lay the house, its roof white in the moonlight, a little stream of yellow coming through the kitchen window, striking the lilac-bushes and falling brokenly on the grass beyond. There was reality in that; but in this whirl of events which crowded his mind there was no tangible thing to lay hold upon.
That Isom was dead on the kitchen floor seemed impossible and unreal, like an event in a dream which one struggles against the terror of, consoling himself, yet not convincingly, as he fights its sad illusions, with the argument that it is nothing but a vision, and that with waking it will pass away.
What was this awful thing with which Sol Greening had charged him, over which the whole neighborhood soon must talk and conjecture?
Murder!
There was no kinder word. Yet the full terror of its meaning was not over him, for his senses still swirled and felt numb in the suddenness of the blow. He had not meant that this accusation should fasten upon him when he sent Ollie from the room; he had not thought that far ahead. His one concern was that she should not be found there, dressed and ready to go, and the story of her weakness and folly given heartlessly to the world.
And Curtis Morgan–where was he, the man to blame for 122 all this thing? Not far away, thought Joe, driving that white road in security, perhaps, even that very hour, while he, who had stood between him and his unholy desires, was being led away by Sol Greening like a calf in a rope. They were going to charge him with the murder of Isom Chase and take him away to jail.
How far would Morgan permit them to go? Would he come forward to bear his share of it, or would he skulk away like a coward and leave him, the bondman, to defend the name of his dead master’s wife at the cost of his own honor and liberty, perhaps his life?