After many, many minutes they were quiet, and clung to each other like people in the dark, afraid.
Captain Willard trembled until his teeth rattled together. He was nerving himself to face the picture of his guilt and his ingratitude—his crime! That was it! His crime.
It was a picture on which the true light had been shed by Squire Phineas Look, whispering to him in a corner of the selectmen’s office.
For some minutes the lawyer and the clergyman had been conversing apart in an undertone, and now the minister came along to the husband and wife and gently drew them away from the corner.
“Kleber and Myra,” he said, “it was not many years ago that I stood before you in this house in the presence of almost the same neighbours who are here now, and I joined your hands in wedlock. I have watched with sorrow and disappointment the wretched troubles that have come into your home life—needless troubles, foolish troubles. This is not a time for a sermon. But it is a time for a friend to speak a word to you. I could have said much to you before, but I refrained, for I realised that your hearts were stubborn and froward, never having been touched by the softness of true love and forbearance. It is the cruel and chastening hand of trouble that does it now. I believe that now your home and your hearts are swept clean of the anger and pride and selfishness and the little vices that ruin homes. I believe that you are now willing to shoulder together the awful burden that has been placed upon you.”
The woman’s face grew white, and she swayed into her husband’s arms. Willard stood gasping for his breath.
“I married your bodies once before, Kleber and Myra. To-night I am going to marry your hearts and your souls, for, God pity you both, you cannot stand alone and bear this horror.”
The people in the kitchen were too raptly engaged to hear the outside door open. The Squire stood in the shadow near it, and a soft “Hist!” engaged his attention.
Hiram’s head was thrust through the opening. He was bareheaded, his clothing was in shreds, and the lamplight shed feeble gleams on a hideous black and blue circle around his sound eye.
When the Squire advanced on tiptoe Hiram seized his arm, pulled him outside and, softly as he had opened it, he closed the door.