Halfway down the rough slope, they saw Mrs. Albeson clambering toward them difficultly, fat as she was and short of breath and full of autumnal rheumatism. She sent her garrulous voice ahead of her:
“What o’ mercy’s happened up there? What’s the voices I heard? Sounded like murder bein’ done.”
RoBards could not answer her in words. She glanced from his white face to the torn lamb he carried and she tried to thrust from her mind the hideous guess it made:
“Not—not?—Aw, no!”
“Hush!” said RoBards. And she knew.
She wavered a moment and wanted to faint or die, but was not used to such comfortable escapes from reality. Revulsion shook her big frame; then her soul seemed to scold her for a cowardice. She raised her head and put out her arms, saying:
“Gi’ me the pore little martyr.”
And RoBards was glad to surrender to this big woman the tiny woman in whose invaded sanctity he felt himself all the more forbidden for being her father.
His last word was: “You won’t speak of this to your husband—or anybody.”
Abby gave him a look of reproach and drew the child into her own breast, smothering the little fainting wail: “Abby—big bad man——”