“Yes, I’m coming, Mrs. Summers. Be with you right immediately.” And that was the first that his real inner consciousness knew or had admitted to it, that he really meant to dare to go to that supper.
He snatched a nice white hair-brush and brushed his hair vigorously, parting it in a way he had never done before, and bungled a knot in the blue tie she had laid out; then, grasping a gray felt hat that seemed to wink at him from the tray of the trunk, he hurried down-stairs, as pleasant-appearing a young man as ever one would need to see. He caught a glimpse of himself in a long old mirror between two windows in the living-room as he came down-stairs, and he said to himself:
“Why, I don’t look in the least like myself. I look a new man. Nobody would ever dream that I’m a murderer!”
He carried two pans of scalloped oysters across the lawn to the church, while Mrs. Summers walked beside him and carried the third, and guided him to the church kitchen door. Now, here would be a good chance to escape when she went inside the kitchen, only he would simply have to take one of those pans of oysters with him, for they were making him giddy now with their delicious odor. He wished he had remembered to bring his old overcoat with him, for it was cold out here in the chill November air.
But Mrs. Summers gave him no chance to escape. She swung the door open and ushered him inside, where he was surrounded by a bevy of young people, who fairly took him into their arms with welcome, and almost carried him on their shoulders into a great banquet-hall, where tables were set with flowers and overflowing plates of good things, and the odors of wonderful food were more than human starving man could resist. He let them shut the door and draw him inside. Only, when he lifted his eyes and met the eyes of one girl in blue whom they introduced as Anita, and who looked at him as if she knew he was a sham, and despised him, did he come to himself and wish he could run away.
But Anita dealt her glancing blows and passed indifferently, and he was hurried eagerly into the banquet-room, and placed in the seat of honor beside the minister, who had also just arrived.
There was a great excitement, for some one had just come in with grave face and open evening paper, stating that the name of Allan Murray was among those who were seriously injured in the wreck.
Murray couldn’t help feeling a twinge of relief and security as he heard that. At least he could eat his dinner in peace, without any more likelihood than there had been for the last three weeks that he would be apprehended and lodged in jail before the meal was over.
But his relief was but short-lived, for another difficulty approached. The minister leaned over, smiling, and said in a low tone:
“Murray, they’re going to call on you to ask a blessing.”