"Be grateful, woman, that worse has not come to us."
Now that the deathlike faint was over, Nathaniel's softening was passing.
"And she went from our door hungry, the poor dear! We wouldn't have treated a beggar so."
"Had she come as a suppliant, all would have been different."
Then Theodora sat up, and a kind of frenzy drove her to speak.
"She had something to tell! You did not let her say her say. What kept her away all night? Jerry-Jo McAlpin has the devil blood in him when he's up to—to pranks. Suppose——" A sort of horror shook the thin, livid face. Nathaniel, in spite of himself, had a bad moment; then his hard common sense steadied him.
"Would she go to him, if what you fear was true?"
"Has she gone to him?"
"Where else then—and all Kenmore not know? Wait till to-morrow before you leap to the doing of that which you may regret. Calm yourself and wait until to-morrow."
And Theodora waited—many, many morrows.