“I don’t know,” he said. Then, after a pause: “I guess that order has been filled.” A bitterness found expression in the quality of his smile. “I saw the liquor delivered at O’Brien’s last night. I saw the ‘runners’ at work. Charlie was with them. Say, where d’you paint from? Right here?”
Helen looked up into the man’s face. The last vestige of levity had passed from her. Her cheeks had paled, and she was striving desperately to read behind the ill-fitting smile she beheld. Bill knew. Bill knew all that everybody believed in the valley. He had done what nobody else had done. He had seen Charlie at his work. A desperate feeling of tragedy was tugging at her heart. This great big soul had received the full force of the blow, and somehow she felt that it had been a staggering blow.
All her sympathy went out to him. Now she utterly ignored his question. She sat down at the foot of the tree and signed to him.
“Sit here,” she said soberly. “Sit here, and—talk to me. You came out here this morning because—because you wanted to find some one to talk to. Well?”
Bill obeyed her. There was no question in his mind. She had fathomed his purpose, and he was glad. He replied to her challenge without hesitation, and strove to speak lightly. But as he went on all lightness passed out of his manner, and the girl was left with a full view of those stirring feelings which he had not the wit nor inclination to secrete for long.
“Say,” he began, “you asked what I was doing here, and guessed right—first time. Only, maybe you didn’t guess it was you I came out to find. I saw you leave your house, and figured you’d make the new church. I was going right on down to the new church. Yes, I wanted to talk—to you. You see, I came here full of a—a sort of hope, and—and in two days I find the arm of the law reaching out to grab up my brother. I’ve given up everything to come and—join. Now I’m up against it, and I can’t just think right. I sort of need some one to help me think—right. You see, I guessed you could do it.”
The man was sitting with his arms clasped about his knees. His big blue eyes were staring out over the valley. But he saw nothing of it.
Helen, watching him, remained quite unconscious of the tribute to herself. She was touched. She was filled with a tender feeling she had never known before. She found herself longing to reach out and take hold of one of those big, strong hands, and clasp it tightly and protectingly in her own. She longed to tell him that she understood his grief, and was yearning to share it with him, that she might lighten the burden which had fallen upon him. But she did neither of these things. She just waited for him to continue.
“You see,” he went on, slowly, with almost painful deliberation, “I kind of feel we can think two ways. One with our heads, and the other with our hearts. That’s how I seem to be thinking now. And between the two I’m all mussed up.”
The girl nodded.