"I 'low you-uns would like to eat a little," said the old man, laughing in the same unnatural way. "Marthy, tote in suthin' from the kitchen as quick as you kin."
The old woman raised her startled, frightened eyes, and for a moment her glance met Harley's; it seemed to him to be full of entreaty; the whole atmosphere of the place was to him tense, strained, and tragic; why, he did not know, but he shook himself and decided that it was only the result of weariness, the long ride, and the night in the storm. Nevertheless, the feeling did not depart because he willed that it should go.
"No, we thank you," Jimmy Grayson was saying; "we are not hungry; but we should like very much to go to bed."
"It's jest with you," said Simpson. "Marthy, I'll show the gen'lemen to their room, and you kin stay here till I come back."
The old woman did not speak, but stood in a crouched attitude looking at Grayson and then at Harley and then at the driver; it seemed to the correspondent that she did not dare trust her voice, and he saw fear still lurking in her eyes.
"Come along, gen'lemen," said Simpson, taking from the table a small lamp, that had been lighted at their entrance, and leading the way.
Harley glanced back once at the door, and the woman's eyes met his in a look that was like one last despairing appeal. But there was nothing tangible, nothing that he could not say was the result of an overwrought fancy.
It was a small and bare room, with only a single bed, to which the old man took them. "It's the best I've got," he said, apologetically. "Mr. Grayson, you an' the newspaper man kin sleep in the bed, an' t'other feller, I reckon, kin curl up on the floor."
"It is good enough for anybody," said Jimmy Grayson, gallantly. As a matter of fact, both he and Harley had known what it was to fare worse.
"Good-night," the man said, and left them rather hastily, Harley thought; but the others took no notice, and were soon in sound slumber, the candidate because he had the rare power of going to sleep whenever there was a chance, and the driver because he was indifferent and tired.