“Are you not better, and will you not tell us what has happened?” asked Mrs. Lawton, in the precise, deliberate staccato speech by which the calmest people often show that they are nervous.
“Did you write us that you were coming? And why, pray, did you not take Bisbee’s hack from the station, instead of risking such a walk in a storm like this?”
“Because I am a fool!” jerked Miss Keith; “I wanted to get here without being seen; I hoped you would let me hide for a few days until I could think out where to go and what to do! I came on the train as far as Stonebridge, and when I boarded the trolley it promised to clear off. If I’d taken Bisbee’s hack, the talk of me would have been all over town and into prayer-meetin’ to-night. This is Wednesday, isn’t it?”
“No, Tuesday,” replied Brooke, soothingly, exchanging an anxious glance with her mother, which as much as said, “Yes, the poor soul is deranged,” while at the same time she was revolving in her mind how she could manage, without attracting attention, to send Adam for Dr. Love, a young physician of Dr. Russell’s recommending, who had lately established himself in Gilead, hitherto the people of the River Kingdom having been obliged to send either to Stonebridge or Gordon. Swift as the glance was, Miss Keith, who was rapidly recovering herself, caught it in passing and, moreover, read its full meaning.
“I’m not crazy, nor coming down with typhoid, nor dying from justice!” she announced in a tone of suppressed excitement that was far from reassuring. “In that I have proved scripture (not that it needed proving), my visit of the last three months has been a success. Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. My pride is gone and I have fallen—”
“Oh, Keith!” said Mrs. Lawton, faintly.
“In spirit, from my high aspirations,” she continued, not heeding the interruption nor the sudden painful colour that suffused Mrs. Lawton’s face. “Also a fool and his money are soon parted, likewise my money and me. So I am, as I said before, a fool, but one who would like a few days to review her folly before the minister and the neighbours feel called upon to wrestle with her about it.”
Light was beginning to dawn upon Mrs. Lawton and Brooke, though as yet the clouds were by no means lifted.
“Would you not rather rest until after supper or have a night’s sleep before you pain yourself by telling us? We do not wish to force any confidence, only naturally we feared that you were ill. Your room, by chance, was aired to-day, and the bed-making is only a minute’s work,” said Mrs. Lawton, rising and laying her hand soothingly upon Keith’s shoulder, as a hint that she might perhaps like to retire, which would have been an unspeakable relief. Not she! Keith West’s nature, blended curiously as it was of Scotch and New England granite, was softest and most retiring in triumphant, happy moods, but in adversity, unsparing and unflinching.
“What I have to tell won’t improve by keeping,” she said by way of answer. “To begin with, I ought to have known better, after all my farming experience, than to buy a pig in a poke, a cow over seven, or a horse without knowing its age, and expect a bargain.”