“Good-night, dear Rupert,” she said, and went away, leaving him seated there alone upon the platform.
That night Tabitha and Edith slept in the house which Mea had assigned to them. It was situated upon a mountain-crest over two miles from the town of which it formed part of the fortifications, was cool, and commanded a beautiful view. To Dick Learmer was given a similar but somewhat smaller house belonging to the same chain of defences, but about five hundred yards away. Both of these houses were provisioned, and both of them guarded day and night, that no harm might come to the guests of the tribe.
So angry was Edith that for a long while she would scarcely speak to Tabitha, who, their meal finished, sat upon a kind of verandah or outlook place, a shut Bible upon her knees, looking at the moonlit desert upon the one hand, and the misty oasis on the other. At this game of silence her patient, untroubled mind was far stronger than that of Edith. At length the latter could bear it no longer; the deep peace of the place, which should have soothed, only exasperated her raw temper. She broke out into a flood of words. She abused Tabitha for bringing her here and exposing her to such insults. She named Mea by ill names. She declared that she would go away at once.
“Ah!” asked Tabitha at last, “and will you take Dick with you?”
“No,” she answered; “I never want to see Dick or any of you again.”
“That is unlucky for me,” said Tabitha; “but since I have reached this nice place, I shall stay here the month and talk with Rupert. Perhaps if he and that pretty lady will have me, I shall stay longer. But I, too, do not want the company of Dick. As for you, dear Edith, if you wish to go, they told you, the road is open. It will save much trouble to everybody.”
“I shall not go,” exclaimed Edith. “Why should I leave my husband with that woman who has no right to him?”
“I am not so sure,” answered Tabitha thoughtfully. “If my little dog is caught in a trap and is ill, and I kick it into the street, and leave it there to starve, and some kind lady comes and takes my little dog and gives it a good home for years, can I say that she has no right to it just because I find out, after all, that it is a valuable little dog, and that I am—oh! so fond of it?”
“Please stop talking nonsense about little dogs, Tabitha. Rupert is not a dog.”
“No; but then why should he have been treated as one? If such a dog would have learned to love its new mistress, is it wonderful that he should do the same? But have you learnt to care for him at last, that you should want him back so much, he who lives here good and happy?”