He was wet to his skin; so was Paul, and so was Elithe. But neither of the three cared. They were safe, and Elithe wrung the water from her skirts and shook it from her hat, which was crushed beyond all shape or comeliness. Then she gave her hand to Paul, but neither spoke a word of parting. They had been in a great peril together; he was in peril yet, and the horror of it was over them still. There was a warm hand clasp, and then Tom and Elithe went out again into the darkness and made their way towards Miss Hansford’s cottage.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
EXCITEMENT.
By nine o’clock the next morning everyone in Oak City knew that Paul had escaped. “Broke jail, and there ain’t no court to-day,” Max Allen said, when he brought the news to Miss Hansford, who was breakfasting alone. Hearing no sound from Elithe’s room, she had looked in and, finding her asleep, had decided not to waken her.
“The child is just played out, and no wonder,” she said, closing the door carefully, and leaving the room by the opposite way from which she had entered.
It was the back way through which Elithe had come in her wet garments, stopping a moment as she fancied she heard her aunt moving. A puddle of water on the floor was the consequence, and into this Miss Hansford stepped as she went out.
“For goodness’ sake, I didn’t know it leaked here,” she said, peering overhead to find the place.
Failing in this, she wiped up the water and thought no more about it. She had heard nothing in the night except the storm, which woke her two or three times. When Max came in with his news, which seemed to excite him happily, she put her coffee cup down quickly and, with the jerk natural to her when surprised, she repeated, “Broke jail! What do you mean?”
“Mean what I say. Mr. Ralston has skipped. Three of them iron bars to the winder gone slick and clean. Must of took a giant’s strength to pull ’em out, though the old house is rotten as dirt. Fourth bar twisted all out of shape. Somebody must of got hurt on the sharp point, for there’s blood on it,—prints of the ends of fingers on the casin’ below,—not very big fingers, either, and jam up under the winder a large stone had been moved for somebody to stan’ on; somebody short, and round the stone was tracks ground down into the sand and mud, so deep that the rain didn’t wash ’em all away. Two tracks,—one a woman’s, sure. There must of been a big tussle right there under the eaves; then there ain’t no more tracks to be seen, nor nothin’ to tell which way they went.”
“Thank the Lord for that!” Miss Hansford said, and Max continued: “Who do you s’pose the woman was?”
“How should I know?” Miss Hansford replied, thinking the same thought with Max, who went on: “Between you and I, I b’lieve ’twas Miss Ralston, for who but his mother would go out such an awful night. Rained cats and dogs. I never heard bumpiner thunder, nor seen streakeder lightnin’. Struck two trees and a barn at Still Haven. Folks think she must have had a hand in it and don’t seem much sorry that he’s cut and run. That evidence yestiddy was tellin’ and sure to convict him. But the law must be vin-di-ca-ted, you know, and they’ll have to pretend to hunt for him, of course. You don’t know nothin’ about it, do you?”