She crawled off the bed, and went to the shop door. By main force she had to drag her unwilling feet over the threshold. She stood for two tense minutes scanning the room with pathetic keenness. Then she walked forward and stood beside the bench. It seemed to be sentiently alive with the magnetism of the man who had lately occupied it. Jinnie sat on it, a cry bursting from her white lips. She wanted to be with him, but she had promised to take care of Peggy, and she would rather die than betray that trust. Her eyes fell upon two dark spots upon the floor, one near the door and one almost under her feet. She shuddered as she realized it was blood. Then she went to the kitchen for water and washed it away. This done, she gathered up Lafe’s tools, reverently kissing each one as she laid it in the box under the bench. How lonely the shop looked in the gathering gloom! To dissipate the lengthening shadows in the corners, she lighted the lamp. The flickering flame brought back keenly the hours she had spent with Lafe—hours in which she had learned so much. The whole horror that had fallen on the household rushed over her being like a tidal wave over a city. Misery of the most exquisite kind 252 was tearing her heart in pieces, stabbing her throat with long, forklike pains. Tense throat muscles caught and clung together, choking back her breath until she lay down, full length, upon the cobbler’s bench.
In poignant grief she thought of the expression of Lafe’s face when he had been wheeled from the room. His voice came back through the faint light.
“He has given His angels charge over thee, lassie.”
But how could she believe in the angels, with Lafe in prison and Theodore dying? She got up, spent and worn with weeping, and went in to Peggy, sitting for a few minutes beside the agonized woman, but she could not say one word to make that agony less. In losing the two strong friends, she had lost her faith too. Peg’s face was turned to the wall, and as she didn’t answer when the girl laid her hand on her shoulder, Jinnie tiptoed out. In her own room she lay for seemingly century-long hours with Bobbie pressed tightly to her breast.
CHAPTER XXXVI
JINNIE EXPLAINS THE DEATH CHAIR TO BOBBIE
Seven days had dragged their seemingly slow length from seconds to minutes, from minutes to hours, from hours to days. In the cobbler’s shop Jinnie and Bobbie waited in breathless anxiety for Peg’s return. She had gone to the district attorney for permission to visit her husband in his cell. Nearly three hours had passed since her departure, and few other thoughts were in the mind of the girl save the passionate wish for news of her two beloved friends. She was standing by the window looking out upon the tracks, and as a heavy train steamed past she counted the cars with melancholy rhythm. There came to her mind the day she had found Bobbie on the hill, and all the sweet moments since when the cobbler had been with them. She choked back a sob that made a little noise in her tightened throat.
Bobbie stumbled his unseeing way to her and shoved a small, cold hand into hers.