He kept on talking right up-stairs. Pen remained sitting at the table looking at her empty hands.
She sat thinking and thinking; stirring the tea which had long ago turned cold. The only possible way she had of raising money was through the sale of her sheep. She had considered that once before. Her father would try to prevent her of course, but she might drive them up the Neck road at night and put them on the steamboat from one of the Bay wharves. But Delehanty's men were watching the road at a dozen points.
In her perplexity Pen felt a great longing to consult with Don. Two heads were better than one, she told herself. Perhaps the truth was she just wanted to be with him. She was thankful she had made an arrangement to communicate. In the ordinary course he could hardly expect a letter from her until the next day, but thinking of his boyish eagerness it seemed quite possible that he might come back that night on the chance of hearing from her. At any rate it was worth trying.
She got a scrap of paper and a pencil, and wrote four lines:
"I must see you. I'll put on an old dress and a sun-bonnet and walk on the beach near the lighthouse at eleven. If you don't get this to-night I'll come to-morrow night."
Pen put this into the agreed place, and returned to the house, wondering how she would put in the hour and a half that remained before eleven. She determined to watch to see whether he came for the note. So she went up-stairs rather noisily, and came down again very quietly, carrying with her what she needed for her disguise.
She took up her position on a chair in the dark kitchen, placed against the wall in such a way that she could look obliquely through the window in the direction of her chicken coop. The moon was not up yet, and it was pitch dark under the tree. She could see nothing, but she was sure no one could visit the spot without her being aware of it.
And after all she dozed. She had had little enough sleep of late, and now that the most pressing weight was lifted from her breast, the night laid a finger on her eyelids without her being aware of it. The katydids, the crickets, the distant murmur of the waves on the Bay shore gradually undermined wakefulness. Her head swayed against the wall.
She awakened, scarcely knowing she had slept. Somebody was outside. She was electrically conscious of it, though for a moment she could hear nothing. Then a soft, masculine chuckle came out of the dark. There was more than one evidently, for men do not as a rule chuckle when alone. A voice whispered.
"Doggone, if it ain't a coop, fellas! What say to a nice fat pullet for breakfast?"