“Go to her, father. Don’t let everybody touch her,” he called aloud to his father, who hastened to the room where she was being shaken and fanned, and deluged with water and strangled with hartshorn and camphor, until she came back to consciousness.
“What have I done? Where have I been?” she said.
“Been through a thrashing machine and come out whole,” her aunt said, wiping the water from her hair and dress, and putting on her hat.
“Are they through? Is it over? Will they let him go?” she asked.
No one replied, except to say that she was through and could go home as soon as she liked.
“Take my carriage. It’s too far for her to walk,” Judge Ralston said, putting her and her aunt into it, and then returning to his wife.
It was Tom who drove Elithe home and said to her as he lifted her out, “He’ll get off yet.”
“Get off! What nonsense! We’ve hung him,” was Miss Hansford’s retort, as she hurried Elithe into the house.
It was very hot and close indoors and Elithe felt that she should suffocate if she staid there.
“I must go where I can breathe,” she said, and, taking her hat, she started for the Baptist Tabernacle, which was open on three sides.