In the sunlight Grace waited for her to come down, and involuntarily as she looked at the flood of golden light in which the landscape was steeped, she could not help thinking that as the rain falleth on the just and the unjust, so the sun shines on the happy and the miserable.
Whilst she was vainly trying to solve this great problem of nature’s lack of sympathy, Mrs. Scott joined her, keeping at a respectful distance.
“I know what you mean, Miss Grace,” began the woman, who had grown old suddenly; “but, between you and me and him, it’s no use talking of innocency if the other thing be guiltiness. He did it, and if I had been in his place, I’d ha’ done it myself.”
These people—neither the man nor the woman—nor men nor women like them, were likely to take refuge in falsehood, and conviction entered Grace’s heart at that moment. If Amos had sinned, he would have told how it all came about ere now. Had his been the hands that struck his enemy down, he would have waited for no warrant but given himself up, and with obstinate honesty endured the consequences of his guilt.
Or it might be that in the natural terror induced by the accomplishment of such a deed, and the horror of the consequences certain to ensue, he would have fled. Either the sturdy endurance or the frantic fear would not have been out of keeping with the hard, stubborn, straightforward nature—but resolutely to maintain his innocence even to his own lawyer—to offer no explanation as to whether the blow was dealt in cold blood or after bitter altercation—Grace could not reconcile such a line of conduct with anything she could remember of Scott, and out of the fulness of her heart she spoke, “As certainly as you stand there I believe Amos never killed that man.”
“Do you think you’ll make a jury believe that, Miss Grace?” asked Mrs. Scott, holding a blue-checked apron to her face, down which tears were coursing. “Well, well—one trouble is almost driven out by another—when Reuben’s gone, there’ll be no one to think about but the master.”
In this she chanced to be mistaken, however. When Reuben was gone, she herself lay fighting for dear life with the fever which had passed by her husband; leaving him, so most people said, for a worse fate than death by the visitation of God.
CHAPTER XI.
IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES.
Before Miss Moffat had nearly reached Maryville, Susan met her.
“It went out of my head, Miss,” she began, “to tell you they had the fever at the farm. You have been there most like.”