“Oh, Jinny, if William had only married you!” she gasped.
Virginia went away with a red face. It seemed to her that the thing pursued her, whichever way she turned. The rest of that day she devoted to close attention to the household affairs.
“I shan’t be home until late, Jinny,” her grandfather ’phoned her during the afternoon. “I reckon it’ll go to the jury to-day. Say, Jinny!”
“Yes, grandpa, I’m listening.”
“Mrs. William Carter’s going on the stand. Jinny, the court-room’s packed, just like sardines in a box. They’re sitting on the window-sills this minute. Don’t you wait dinner if I’m late.”
Virginia hung up the receiver with a pale face. She had heard an account of William in the corridor from her grandfather, and she had divined how William felt.
The old man’s robust anger against “that lummox” for spoiling his own life did not reach Virginia. She remembered William’s boyish figure trudging home from school with her books, William reading the “Iliad” with her, and William, when he told her that he loved her. It had all been a youthful affair. She knew that, so she told herself; but she could never quite forget it when she thought of him. She thought of it now, and tried in vain to picture him sitting there, helplessly, and hearing all the whispers and gossiping when his wife went on the stand to try to save his brother—for such a cause!
Virginia, who had been standing by the telephone, walked slowly across the room to a window that overlooked the town. It was a spot that showed the old place in its most homelike and friendly aspect, with its wreath of foliage—now, in midsummer, at the full height of its beauty—and its background of lovely hills. She could see from here the long gable of Dr. Barbour’s roof, and over there the chimneys of the Paysons’ more pretentious mansion. Behind the tall poplars was the Carter house, and yonder the cross-tipped spire of the church. Beyond these she caught a glimpse of a distant cupola, and knew it to be the apex of the court-house. A pleasant, warm haze hung in the summer atmosphere, and she could hear the tinkling bell on a passing peddler’s cart.
Virginia tried not to think. She did not want to think of William watching his wife go on the stand for such a cause; but as she leaned forward her hands gripped the window-sill until the delicate knuckles whitened.
She was still there when Lucas came driving back from town. He had taken the colonel to court in an antiquated rockaway that belonged in the family. He was returning alone now, with a number of bundles in the rockaway, topped by a large ripe watermelon. Virginia watched him drive in the gate and on to the stables.