At dinner-time Elia informed her that there were some jack-rabbits in a bluff just outside the village, and declared his intention of snaring them for her that night. But she paid only the slightest attention to him, and gave him permission to go almost without thinking. Since Will had escaped there was only one thing of any consequence. It was Jim’s safety from the angry villagers.
That afternoon, as she sat over her work, he alone occupied her thoughts and troubled her to a degree that would have startled her had she been less concerned in his danger. She saw now how the cowardly part she had played in accepting his help to save her worthless husband had thrown the burden of his crime upon Jim’s willing shoulders. And now they wanted to hang him. She was to blame and she alone. She who would not willingly hurt one hair of his head.
Hurt him? Oh, no, no! And yet, how she had hurt him already. She had never meant to. It had been rushed upon her. She had acted upon the impulse of 313 the moment. And then––then he had refused to listen when she realized the meaning of what she had done. Hurt him? No. Now she felt that nothing else mattered if only she could see a way to clear his name.
She thought long and hopelessly. Then, of a sudden, she sprang to her feet with a cry. Yes, yes, there was a way. They should not hang him. She still had it in her power to save him. She still had it in her power to tell the whole miserable, pitiful truth. She had been a coward, but she would be a coward no longer. This was for Jim. The other had been for herself. Yes, she would tell the truth. She would tell them that Will Henderson––her husband––was the thief. They would believe––yes–––
But her hope suddenly dropped from her. Would they believe? She remembered what Annie had told her. She had been seen with Jim several times in the village since he had left McLagan’s. How many times? Once––twice––– Yes, three times in all. And already the women of the place had started scandalous stories. Would they believe her? If she denounced Will, what then? Their retort would promptly be that she was trying to rid herself of her husband, for––her own ends. Oh, it was cruel!
She flung herself into her chair, and buried her face in her hands. She could do nothing. Nothing but wait for help from others. And God alone knew into what trouble she might not plunge them.
But gradually she became calmer. She began to think in a different channel. She was thinking of these scandalous tongues, and searching for an answer to them. She began to question her feelings. She told herself 314 that Jim was nothing but a friend. A well-liked friend. She told herself this several times, and thought she believed it. Why should it be otherwise? She had only seen him three times since he came in from McLagan’s. So why should it be otherwise? No, it was not otherwise.
Slowly, as she thought, and the hours drifted on, her fears fell away into the background. Her heart grew very tender, and her denial less decided. She wondered where Jim was. She longed to go to him. She would have loved to carry the warning to him herself. Somehow, she wanted to be at his side, to tell him all she felt at the trouble she had brought upon him. At the wrong she had so thoughtlessly, unintentionally done him. She wanted to show him how she had only done as her weak woman’s conscience had prompted her. She had not thought beyond what she believed to be her duty. She had not paused to think what trouble she was bringing on others––on him. Had she only realized at the time, that, with all her might, she was driving the searing brand deeper into his flesh, she would rather have faced the rope herself. She wanted to tell him all this, to open her heart to him, and let him see that she was not the cruel, selfish creature he must think her for having accepted his sacrifice in bearing the warning to Will.
The fascination of her self-abnegating thought held her, and she drifted on to more personal details. She pictured his kind eyes, and heard his deep, gentle voice telling her that he forgave her, that he preferred to carry the warning rather than she should suffer. She felt in her heart that this was what he would say, for she 315 knew, as most women know these things, that the old love of a year ago was still as it was then. And the thought of it was sweet and comforting now in her trouble.
She remained in her wondrously seductive dreamland while the minutes crept on. And, as the dusky shadows of evening gathered, she sat silent in her woman’s dream of the man. It was gentle, soothing, irresistible. It was the natural reaction after long hours of mental struggle, when a merciful Providence brings relief to the suffering mind, the saving sedative of a few restful moments in the realms of a gentle dreaming of subconsciousness.