She would have fallen. He caught her. He held her against him. She couldn’t speak. He couldn’t believe his ears.
“You said he wouldn’t come back!” she began, again. “Wully, he took hold of me! He—” She was weeping with rage and terror. “Look here!” Her sleeve was torn half off. “You said he wouldn’t come back!” she cried, shaking.
“You’re dreaming!” he cried. He couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible.
“He came to the door,” she sobbed. “I didn’t see him till then. I’m not dreaming! Look at my dress! Where you going? Don’t leave me alone!”
He had started for his gun. Rage came over him like a fever mounting. The sight of that torn sleeve made him suddenly blind with anger. He couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible that man had dared to come back and lay violent hands on his wife. It simply couldn’t be. She was calling to him to wait for her. She wouldn’t be left alone.
He helped her along blindly. He had never known such murderous anger. He wanted her to hurry. He lusted for that gun. He felt her trembling against him. By God, his wife wouldn’t have to tremble much longer!
It seemed to him long before they came to their house—very long. “Don’t you let him hurt you!” she moaned as they came up to it. He strode into the kitchen. There the baby slept in his cradle, and flies walked leisurely over the piecrust scattered over the floor. He seized his gun. He went to the east door, and looked out. He went to the west door. He stood looking. Before his eyes hens scratched for their broods in peace. He searched the house. He turned to go to the barn. She cried after him, “Oh, don’t let him hurt you!” He went without caution, madly. But in the barn there was no enemy. No sign of a man behind the barn, where the grass billows chased one another. No one hiding about the haystack. He strode about seeking. There was no enemy in any place. But beyond the little tree bed, and the garden, beyond the wheat fields—what might be there, to the east to the west, to the north and the south, in those wild man-high grasses! There a thousand men might hide and laugh at pursuers. Looking at those baffling stretches, Wully choked. He was helpless.
He went back to his wife. She was trying vainly to compose herself. “I never thought he would come! I never imagined it! You said he wouldn’t, Wully!” Didn’t she see how that reproach must madden him! “I was just standing there, making the pie. He came to that door. I thought it was you. And when I looked up, he was looking at me, Wully!” She wailed out that last. “He was looking at me. I didn’t know what to do. He just grabbed me!” She buried her face in her arms, and sobbed.
God! If only he could get hold of that snake who hid in the grasses! He turned abruptly again to the search.
“Stay with me!” she cried. “Where you going?”