"It's not mine, but I do have to bear it. I wish my bearing it was all. Tell me, if—if a man has done—such a sin, is it right to help him get away?"
"If it is that big brother of yours, whom I saw last night, I can't believe he has done anything so very wicked. You say it is not the whiskey?"
"Maybe it was the whiskey first—then—I don't know exactly how came it—I reckon he doesn't himself. I—he's not my brothah—not rightly, but he has been the same as such. They telegraphed me to come home quick. Bishop Towahs told me a little—all he knew,—but he didn't know what all was it, only some wrong to call the officahs and set them aftah Frale—poor Frale. He—he told me himself—last evening." She paused again, and the pallor slowly left her face and the red surged into her cheeks and mounted to the waves of her heavy hair.
"It is Frale, then, who is in trouble! And you wish me to help him get away?" She looked down and was silent. "But I am a stranger, and know nothing about the country."
He pushed his chair away from the table and leaned back, regarding her intently.
"Oh, I am afraid for him." She put her hand to her throat and turned away her face from his searching eyes, in shame.
"I prefer not to know what he has done. Just explain to me your plan, and how I can help. You know better than I."
"I can't understand how comes it I can tell you; you are a strangah to all of us—and yet it seems like it is right. If I could get some clothes nobody has evah seen Frale weah—if—I could make him look different from a mountain boy, maybe he could get to some town down the mountain, and find work; but now they would meet up with him before he was halfway there."
Thryng rose and began pacing the room. "Is there any hurry?" he demanded, stopping suddenly before her.
"Yes."