There was no reply or movement from the figure in the chair, and Follett resumed:
“I guess he was just asleep and dreaming about something. Well, anyway—I—I found out afterwards by telling it before him, that Mr. Barney Carter and his drunken friend had given me his name right, though I could hardly believe it before.”
“What an awful, awful thing! What wickedness there is in the world!”
“Oh, a tolerable lot,” he assented.
He had been all animation and eagerness in the telling of the story, but had now become curiously silent and listless; so that, although she was eager with many questions about what he had said, she did not ask them, waiting to see if he would not talk again. But instead of talking, he stayed silent and presently began to fidget in his chair. At last he said, “If you’ll excuse us, Miss Prudence, your pa and I have got a little business matter to talk over—to-night. I guess we can go down here by the corral and do it.”
But she arose quickly and bade him good night. “I hope I shall see you to-morrow,” she said.
She bent over to kiss her father as she went in, and when she had done so, warned him that he must not sit in the night air.
“Why your face is actually wet with a cold sweat. You ought to come in at once.”
“After a very little, dear. Go to bed now—and always be a good girl!”
“And you’ve grown so hoarse sitting here.”