Miranda led Marcia up to the spring whose location had been known to her all the time of course, and Marcia bathed her eyes and was soon looking more like herself, though there was a nervous tremor to her lips now and then. But her companion talked gaily, and tried to keep her mind from going over the events of the morning.
When they reached the village Miranda suggested they go home by the back street, slipping through a field of spring wheat and climbing the garden fence. She had a mind to keep out of her grandmother’s sight for a while longer.
“I might’s well be hung for a sheep’s a lamb,” she remarked, as she slid in at Marcia’s kitchen door in the shadow of the morning-glory vines. “I’m goin’ to stay here a spell an’ get you some dinner while you go upstairs an’ lie down. You don’t need to go back to your aunt’s till near night, an’ you can wait till dusk an’ I’ll go with you. Then you needn’t be out alone at all. I know how you feel, but I don’t believe you need worry. He’ll be done with you now forever, er I’ll miss my guess. Now you go lie down till I make a cup o’ tea.”
Marcia was glad to be alone, and soon fell asleep, worn out with the excitement, her brain too weary to go over the awful occurrences of the morning. That would come later. Now her body demanded rest.
Miranda, coming upstairs with the tea, tiptoed in and looked at her,—one round arm thrown over her head, and her smooth peachy cheek resting against it. Miranda, homely, and with no hope of ever attaining any of the beautiful things of life, loved unselfishly this girl who had what she had not, and longed with all her heart to comfort and protect the sweet young thing who seemed so ill-prepared to protect herself. She stooped over the sleeper for one yearning moment, and touched her hair lightly with her lips. She felt a great desire to kiss the soft round cheek, but was afraid of wakening her. Then she took the cup of tea and tiptoed out again, her eyes shining with satisfaction. She had a self-imposed task before her, and was well pleased that Marcia slept, for it gave her plenty of opportunity to carry out her plans.
She went quickly to David’s library, opened drawers and doors in the desk until she found writing materials, and sat down to work. She had a letter to write, and a letter, to Miranda, was the achievement of a lifetime. She did not much expect to ever have to write another. She plunged into her subject at once.
“Dear Mr. David:” (she was afraid that sounded a little stiff, but she felt it was almost too familiar to say “David” as he was always called.)
“I ain’t much on letters, but this one has got to be writ. Something happened and somebody’s got to tell you about it. I’m most sure she wont, and nobody else knows cept me.
“Last night ’bout dark I went out to feed the chickens, an’ I see that nimshi Harry Temple skulkin round your house. It was all dark there, an he walked in the side gate and tried to peek in the winders, only the shades was down an he couldn’t see a thing. I thought he was up to some mischief so I followed him down the street a piece till he turned down the old corduroy road. It was dark by then an I come home, but I was on the watchout this morning, and after Mis’ Spafford come down to the house I heard a horse gallopin by an I looked out an saw a boy get off an take a letter to the door an ride away, an pretty soon all in a hurry your wife come out tyin her bonnet and hurryin along lookin scared. I grabbed my sunbonnet an clipped after her, but she went so fast I didn’t get up to her till she got on the old corduroy road. She was awful scared lookin an she didn’t want me much I see, but pretty soon she up an told me she had a note sayin there was a messenger with news from you out to the old Green Tavern. He had a accident an couldn’t come no further. He wanted her to come alone cause the business was private, so I stayed down by the turn of the road till she got in an then I went cross lots an round to the kitchen an called on Mis’ Green a spell. She was tellin me about her boarders an I told her I thought mebbe one of em was a friend o’ Hannah Heath’s so she said I might peek through the key hole of the cubberd an see. She was busy so I went alone.
“Well sir, I jest wish you’d been there. That lying nimshi was jest goin on the sweetest, as respectful an nice a thankin your wife fer comin, an excusin himself fer sendin fer her, and sayin he couldn’t bear to tell her what he’d come fer, an pretty soon when she was scared ’s death he up an told her a awful fib bout you an a woman called Kate, whoever she is, an he jest poured the words out fast so she couldn’t speak, an he said things about you he shouldn’t uv, an you could see he was makin it up as he went along, an he said he had proof. So he pointed at a pile of letters on the table an I eyed em good through the hole in the door. Pretty soon he ups and perposes that he carry her off in a carriage he has all ready, and takes her to a friend of his, so she wont be here when you come home, cause you’re so bad, and she gets up looking like she wanted to scream only she didn’t dare, and she says he dont tell the truth, it wasn’t so any of it, and if it was it was all right anyway, that you had some reason, an she wouldn’t go a step with him anywhere. An then he forgets all about the lame ankle he had kept covered up on a chair pertendin it was hurt fallin off his horse when the coach brought him all the way fer I asked Mis’ Green—and he ketches her by the wrists, and he says she can’t go without him, and she needn’t be in such a hurry fer you wouldn’t have no more to do with her anyway after her being shut up there with him so long, an then she looked jest like she was going to faint, an I bust out through the door an ketched up the ink pot, it want heavy enough to kill him, an I slung it at him, an the ink went square in his eyes, an we slipped through the closet an got away quick fore anybody knew a thing.