Daniel slackened his pace, partly because his lameness always troubled him when he was weary, and partly because he wanted to order his thoughts. He found it hard, for he was visited by a vision of Virginia standing in the open door of her home, holding his hand, her eyes full of sympathy—for Leigh!
At his own gate Daniel paused and looked up at the sky. The moon was just rising with an extraordinary beauty. The upper sky looked like a silver sea, pierced here and there by a brilliant star, and against it the dark hills rose in sharpened outlines, silhouetted against the ineffable sky. It had been so yesterday; it would be so to-morrow.
The unchangeable forces of nature seemed to reach Daniel with a new and bitter truth. Things would continue in spite of their little tragedy, even life would go on just the same—except for the coarse man lying dead with Leigh’s bullet in his heart!
He was a long time finding his latch-key, he felt so reluctant to open the door. But, as the lock clicked, his mother appeared at the threshold of the drawing-room, and he saw that she was shaking all over.
“Oh, Danny!” In emotion she always reverted to the baby names of her children. “Oh, Danny, didn’t you bring him home. Where is he?”
“I couldn’t bring him to-night, mother.” Daniel laid his hand kindly on her arm. “He’s all right—I’ve just been with him.”
She looked at him in horror, tears welling up in her eyes.
“He—he isn’t in jail?” she whispered in a faint voice, clutching at Daniel’s sleeve.
He put his arm around her.
“No, mother—he’s in the station-house, that’s all.”