“Poor thing! Ludlow, what in the world shall we do?”
“Put her to bed.”
“Of course, Ludlow. But will anybody hurt you to-morrow?”
“There are two good guns on the rack over the chimney. I don't think anybody will hurt me or her either, to-morrow.”
“Rosanne, my dear,” said Cecilia, trying to lift the relaxed soft body and to open the stairway door behind her. “Come up with me right off. I think you better be where people cannot look in at us.”
Rosanne yielded and stumbled to her feet, clinging to her friend. When they disappeared the young man heard her through the stairway enclosure sobbing with convulsive gasps:
“I hate Elizabeth Aiken! I wish they would kill Elizabeth Aiken! I hate her—I hate her!”
The light-house-keeper sat down again on his doorstep and faced the prospect of taking care of a homeless Mormon. It appeared to him that his wife had not warmly enough welcomed her or met the situation with that recklessness one needed on Beaver Island. The tabernacle began to burn lower, brands streaming away in the current which a fire makes. It was strange to be more conscious of inland doings than of that vast unsalted sea so near him, which moistened his hair with vaporous drifts through the darkness. The garnet redness of the temple shed a huger amphitheatre of shine around itself. A taste of acrid smoke was on his lips. He was considering that drunken fishermen might presently begin to rove, and he would be wiser to go in and shut the house and put out his candle, when by stealthy approaches around the light-house two persons stood before him.
“Is Ludlow here?” inquired a voice which he knew.