Elithe fairly jumped. Her aunt knew, and there was nothing left but to tell the truth.
“Tom was with me,” she said.
“I thought so. Where’s Paul? What did you do with him?”
“Left him in the boat-house. I don’t know where he is now,” Elithe replied, and her aunt continued: “In the boat-house! Elithe Hansford, do you mean you brought him by boat in that awful storm? They say two trees and a barn were struck near Still Haven.”
“It would not have surprised me if every house in Oak City had been struck,” Elithe answered, as she recalled the awful storm and the great peril she had been in.
At her aunt’s request, she told everything,—why she went and what she did, and showed her wounded hand, and said there was a cut on Paul’s forehead, which had scraped against the same sharp iron point. Miss Hansford’s knees shook so that she could hardly stand. Nor could she think of any fitting words with which to express her feelings except “Lord of Heavens!” which came to her the more readily because she had used it so recently.
“There, I’m swearing again, but it’s enough to make a minister swear,—the things I’m goin’ through. I wonder I’m alive. I know where they’ll put him, but he’ll be found, if they haven’t got him already, and then it’ll be worse for him.”
She didn’t reproach Elithe for what she had done, nor feel like reproaching her. On the contrary, she felt an increased admiration for the girl who had braved so many difficulties to save Paul. Elithe seemed to be more like a woman to be counseled with and considered than a girl to be advised and dictated to. And Elithe felt ten years older than she had when the great trouble came. Together she and her aunt talked the matter over and waited for news from the Ralston House. Max Allen had gone there after his interview with Miss Hansford to notify Tom, he said, although he had his own suspicions with regard to that young man. He found him grooming a horse near the stable and so busy with his work that he did not seem to see Max until he was close to him and said, “Good mornin’! Heard the news?”
“Yes. Two trees and a barn struck with lightnin’ last night, if that’s what you mean,” Tom answered, without looking up.
“Oh, git out! ’Tain’t that. You know ’tain’t,” Max rejoined. “Paul Ralston’s broke jail, and they’ll be scourin’ the country for him. You hain’t seen him, I s’pose?”