“Hallo, Ralston,” one of the young men called out to him. “Glad to know you are alive. Come here and tell us about it. Heard first your leg was broken, then your arm. Why didn’t you smash his head for him?”
“I’d like to,” Paul said, “but I can’t stop now. I am looking for him. He is up this way somewhere, and I must find him. Have any of you seen him?”
No one had seen him, and Paul passed on hurriedly, while one of the party on the steps remarked, “I don’t believe the trouble is over yet. Ralston was pretty well wrought up for him.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE TRAGEDY.
Elithe was in her room at the rear of the cottage trying to bring up arrearages in her Bible reading. Since entering society she had fallen sadly behind with her five chapters on Sunday and three on every week day. Fishing parties and clam bakes and lawn tennis and the skating rink did not leave much leisure for other duties, and she found to her dismay that she was twenty-five chapters behind,—long chapters, too,—and she felt tired as she thought of them. Still they must be done, and she had set apart this afternoon in which to do them. Her singing in the morning had been a great success, and many had shaken hands with and congratulated her when service was over. She, with others, had wondered at Paul’s absence, which was the more singular on account of his solo. There was no one to sing it until Mr. Turner, the rector, attempted it and broke down. It was too bad of Paul to disappoint them, the people said, while Elithe felt a little aggrieved inasmuch as he had expressed himself so proud of her singing and so desirous for others to hear it. At the offertory when she stood alone she had found herself looking over the congregation in the hope that at the last he might come in. He wasn’t there, but near the door, close up in a corner, some one was sitting, whose face she could not see distinctly and who, when she was through singing, rose up as if to leave, but resumed his seat, and she thought no more about him until church was out. Then, with others she heard of the trouble at the hotel and that Jack had had the effrontery to come to church, sitting by the door and behaving in a very nervous, restless manner, the sexton said in speaking of him.
“Brought his satchel with him and acted as if he couldn’t keep still, and once he did get up to go, but I shook my head at him and he sat down again. He put a dollar in the box, any way.”
This was the sexton’s story, to which his hearers listened eagerly, and none more so than Elithe. She had heard a good deal of Jack Percy, and nothing that was very favorable, and now that he had knocked Paul down he must be a monster. She did not doubt that the man in the corner by the door whom she had seen rise from his seat was he, and was sorry that she had not a better view of him. During her dinner with her aunt she had discussed him and Paul’s absence, regretting that the latter was not there, as he would have told her truly how she sang.
“I was there. I can tell you,” Miss Hansford said so quickly that Elithe nearly fell out of her chair in her surprise.
“You there! Oh, auntie. I’m so glad,” she exclaimed, and her aunt replied, “Yes, I was there. Nobody asked me, but I wanted to see if you made a fizzle.”
“And did I?” Elithe asked.