Late in the afternoon I went to the Parsonage, wondering how I should get to see Edna Blake alone. But Fortune favoured me—as it seemed to have favoured us throughout. The children were all at play in the nearest field. Edna was in what they called the schoolroom in her lilac-print dress, looking over socks and stockings, about a wheelbarrow-full. I saw her through the window, and went straight in. Her large dark eyes looked as sad and big as the hole she was darning; and her voice had a hopeless ring in it.
“Oh, Johnny, how you startled me! Nay, don’t apologize. It is my fault for being so nervous and foolish. I can’t think what has ailed me the last few days: I seem to start at shadows. Have—have you come to tell me anything?”
By the shrinking voice and manner, I knew what she feared—that Fred Westerbrook was taken. Looking round the room, I asked whether what we said could be heard.
“There’s no one to hear,” she answered. “Poor Mrs. Holland is in bed. Mr. Holland is out; and Anne is shut up, cleaning the kitchen.”
“Well, then,” I said, dropping my voice, “I have brought you a message from Fred Westerbrook.”
Down went the socks in a heap. “Oh, Johnny!”
“Hush! No: he is not taken; he is in safe hiding. What’s more, Edna, he is no more guilty than I am. He met the poachers accidentally that night just before the affray, and he never had a gun in his hands at all.”
A prolonged, sobbing sigh, as if she were going to faint, and then a glad light in her eyes. She took up her work again. I went over to the seat next her, and told her all. She was darning all the while. With such a heap of mending the fingers must not be idle.
“To America!” she repeated, in answer to what I said. “What is he going to do for money to carry him there?”