Mrs. Sloane threw open the door, and bade them enter, as if to a festival. “Walk right in,” said she.
There was a wild flutter of hens as they entered. Mrs. Sloane drove them before her. “The hen-house roof fell in, an' I have to keep 'em in here,” she said, and shooed them and shook her shawl at them, until they alighted all croaking with terror upon the bed in the corner.
Then she looked inquiringly around the room. “Why,” she cried, “she's gone; she was settin' here in this rockin'-chair when I went out. She must have run when she see you comin'!”
Mrs. Sloane hustled through a door, the tattered fringes of her shawl flying, and then her voice, shrilly expostulating, was heard in the next room.
The two men waited, standing side by side near the door in a shamed silence. They did not look at each other.
Presently Mrs. Sloane returned without her shawl. Her old cotton gown showed tattered and patched, and there were glimpses of her sharp white elbows at the sleeves. “She won't come out a step,” she announced. “I can't make her. She's takin' on terribly.”
William made a stride forward. “I'll go in and see her,” he said, hoarsely; but Mrs. Jim Sloane stood suddenly in his way, her slender back against the door.
“No, you ain't goin' in,” said she, “I told her I wouldn't let you go in.”
William looked at her.
“She's dreadful set against either one of you comin' in, an' I told her you shouldn't,” she said, firmly. She smoothed her wild locks down tightly over her ears as she spoke. All the coquettish look was gone.