“Are shopkeepers immune, Diana?� asked Jacob Eaton, chuckling.
“I am immune from such conversations,� replied Diana superbly.
Jacob apologized.
Meanwhile, the group by the wayside had drawn nearer together. “I will take your child home, for you are tired,� said Trench sternly, “but I tell you that I do not know your story and you don’t know me. If you accuse me of being that child’s father, you are telling a falsehood. Do you understand what a falsehood is, Jean?�
His face was so stern that the girl cowered.
“No,� she whimpered, “I—I won’t tell, I swore it, I won’t tell his name.�
“Neither will you take mine in vain,� said Caleb Trench, and he lifted the sobbing Sammy.
Cowed, Jean followed, and the strange procession trailed down the white road. Overhead the tall hickories were in flower. The carriage of Colonel Royall had cast dust on Trench’s gray tweed suit and it had powdered Shot’s rough hair. The dog trailed jealously at his heels, not giving precedence to Jean Bartlett. The girl walked droopingly, and now that the fire of conviction had died out of her face, it was shrunken again, like a thin paper mask from behind which there had flashed, for a moment, a Hallowe’en candle. They began to pass people. Aaron Todd, stout farmer and lumberman, rode by in his wagon and nodded to Trench, staring at the child. Jean he knew. Then came two more farmers, and later a backwoodsman, who greeted Trench as he galloped past on his lean, mud-bespattered horse. Then two women passed on the farther side. They spoke to Trench timidly, for he was a reserved man and they did not know him well, but they drew away their skirts from Jean, who was the Shameful Thing at Paradise Ridge.
Strange thoughts beset Caleb; suddenly the girl’s accusation went home; suppose he had been the father of this child on his arm,—would they pass him and speak, and pass her with skirts drawn aside? God knew. He thought it only too probable, knowing men—and women. He was a just man on occasions, but at heart a passionate one. Inwardly he stormed, outwardly he was calm. The dog trailed behind him; so did the girl, a broken thing, who had just sense enough to feel the women’s eyes. They passed more people. Again Caleb answered salutations, again he heard the girl whimper as if she shrank from a blow.
At her own door, which was her grandmother’s, he set down the child. A shrill voice began screaming. “Is the hussy there? Come in with you, you thing of shame; what d’ye walk in the road for? The Ridge is fair screamin’ with your disgrace, you trollop. Jean, Jean!�