Again he heard the faint stir of her movements on the other side of the door.
“The girl looked like death,” he said bluntly. “She’d been through a terrible ordeal. It—I tell you what, Jinny, it looked darned cowardly!”
There was no reply to this, not even the rustle of Virginia’s garments. The colonel waited, rubbing his chin. At last he thought it better to leave something to her imagination.
“Have a bottle of ginger ale, Jinny? It’ll do your head good.”
She laughed hysterically. He could hear it. It was a musical laugh, but it was full of tears. His hand clenched.
“You get better!” he called to her. “I want you to drive up the mountain to-morrow and look at Colonel Russell’s mare. He wants to sell her for a lady’s saddle-horse. I reckon you’d like her, Jinny. It’ll take you about half the day. You can lunch with Mrs. Barbour. The doctor met me in town to-day, and he said his wife wanted you out to luncheon at the farm to-morrow.”
There was a rustle this time.
“I think I’ll go. Thank you, grandpa. You’re an angel—I mean about the horse.”
The old man cackled.
“Not in any other way, eh, Jinny?”