She sprang up with great energy. "He must not know. It is the one thing Hermie will not let him know if it is possible to help it. Oh, of course the worst catastrophe may come and overwhelm us; but while we have hope of escape, Hermie will not let Mr. Alden know that."
It had become dark. Hermione Claxton was looking for her sister, walking across the meadow and calling in motherly tones.
"Answer me just one thing. Did your sister tell you in plain words that she committed this deed?"
"No; she did not. But I have tried to make what she said mean anything else. In any case she would not have said a word she could help; such words are too terrible. Can you think I have not sought to believe otherwise?"
She said this in a tense, hurried voice, and standing at the barn door, called back: "I'm coming, I'm coming, dear."
"She never did it," said Durgan strongly. "She knows who did. She is shielding someone."
"That is very easy to say," said the girl scornfully. "Of one thing I am certain; there is no one on earth she would shield at my expense. Think what we have suffered while she fought through that terrible trial. She knows no one, loves no one on earth, but me and Mr. Alden."
"I'm coming, I'm coming, darling."
She took up her empty pail and ran.