Not a quiver shook the low, severe voice. The very hardness moved Farwell to deep pity.
"It's now, Mr. Farwell, that I'd have you come to the Lodge and help me with my task, and when it's over I want you to stand with me beside those two empty graves and say what you can for them who never had the right mother to teach them. I'm no church woman; the job of priest and minister sickens me, but I know a good man when I see one. You helped the lads while they lived; you risked your life to help them home at the last; and it's you who shall consecrate the empty beds where I'd have my lads lie if the power were mine!"
Farwell got up and paced the room restlessly. Suddenly, with Ledyard's recognition, the poor shell of respectability and self-respect which, during his lonely years, had grown about him, was torn asunder, and he was what he knew the doctor believed him. To such, Mary McAdam's request seemed a cruel jest, a taunt to drive him into the open. And yet he knew that up to the last ditch he must hold to what he had secured for himself—the trust and friendship of these simple people. Hard and distasteful as the effort was he dared not turn himself from it. Full well he knew that Ledyard's magnifying glass was, unseen, being used against him even now. The delay was probably caused by the doctor's silent investigation of his recent life, his daily deeds. He could well imagine the amusement, contempt, and disbelief that would meet the story of his poor, blameless years during which he had played with children, worked in his garden, been friends with the common folk, not from any high motive, but to keep himself from insanity! He had had to use any material at hand, and it had brought about certain results that Ledyard would dissect and toss aside, he would never believe! Still the attempt to live on, as he had lived, must be undertaken. A kind of desperation overcame him.
What did it matter? He might just as well go on until he was stopped. He was no safer, no more comfortable, sitting apart waiting for his summons. He would, as far as in him lay, ignore the menacing thing that hovered near, and play the part of a man while he might.
"I'm ready to go with you, Mrs. McAdam," he said, turning for his hat, "and as we go tell me what you are about to do."
It was no easy telling. The mere statement of fact was so crude that Farwell could not, by any possibility, comprehend the dramatic scene he was soon to witness and partake of.
"I'm going to keep my word," Mary McAdam explained. "I'll not be waiting for the license to be given, or taken away, I'll keep my word."
It was a still, breathless night, with a moon nearly full, and as Mrs. McAdam, accompanied by Farwell, passed over the Green toward the Lodge, the idlers and loiterers followed after at a respectful distance. Mary was the centre of attraction just then, and Farwell always commanded attention, used as the people were to him.
"Come on! come on!" called Mary without turning her head. "Bring others and behold the sight of your lives. Behold a woman keeping her word when the need for the keeping is over!"
A growing excitement was rising in Mary's voice; she was nearing the end of her endurance and was becoming reckless.