"I have always been afraid for him," he told her in reply, as studiously grave as though he had been conscious of what he was saying. "The others—they can take care of themselves. They are wrong ones together. But Big Louie is only a child—but he won't mind—he'll understand——"
She thought then that he had recognized her; she dared to hope that his brain was clearing. But when the team went forward, nervously unmanageable at first, then more decorous as they drew away from him who would never feed them brown sugar again, the man beside her only persisted vacantly with his topic.
"Big Louie never could find his way alone," he mused, "and that is strange, too, for he was born in these hills. He was always getting lost——" And with that he must not desert Louie! She had even more trouble with him this time. "He will lose his head," he expostulated mildly—his old, unfailing attitude of gentleness toward her. "He will lose his head and waste his strength in running from things which do not exist."
"Big Louie will find his way this time." She was whimpering again in her helplessness. "He is—already home."
There she learned that her voice could control him when her arms availed not at all against even his dead weight. And so she talked as steadily as she was able while she drove. Once he lurched against her; when he pulled himself together he was so sanely apologetic of a sudden that she searched his face with hungry eyes. But he was talking now to himself.
"I must not touch her!" he stated firmly. And then, drearily: "I am sick.… I have never been so sick—before."
With that he subsided, but his silence was far more dreadful than his wanderings had been; and as fast as she dared she pushed the heavy team on, with Ragtime following behind like a dog. He slipped back against her almost immediately, and this time he had not the strength with which to apologize nor lift himself erect. With his head heavy in the hollow of her arm, they came at length to the open pasture hills; they topped the rise and faced the loops on loops of highway that ran down to Morrison at the river-edge. And so she brought him home. At the sight of his "city" she sobbed aloud, but he, sunken and slack, was conscious neither of distance covered nor change of country. He climbed down from the seat, however, in response to her urgings, when the team halted before Caleb Hunter's white-columned house—he turned and started stubbornly back the way they had come.
She ran after him and clung to his arm.
"You promised that you would come back to me," she cried up at him. "Oh, you cannot leave me now!"
That halted him, momentarily.