The popcorn man, although associated long with Stimson, had never got over being dazed.
"They've—they've—gone round to th'—th'—house," he said with difficulty, as if he had just been stunned.
"Whose house?" snapped Stimson.
"Your—your house, I s'pose," said the popcorn man.
Stimson marched round to his home. Kingly denunciations surged, already formulated, to the tip of his tongue, and he bided the moment when his anger could fall upon the heads of that pair of children. He found his wife convulsive and in tears.
"Where's Lizzie?"
And then she burst forth—"Oh—John—John—they've run away, I know they have. They drove by here not three minutes ago. They must have done it on purpose to bid me good-bye, for Lizzie waved her hand sadlike; and then, before I could get out to ask where they were going or what, Frank whipped up the horse."
Stimson gave vent to a dreadful roar.
"Get my revolver—get a hack—get my revolver, do you hear—what the devil—" His voice became incoherent.
He had always ordered his wife about as if she were a battalion of infantry, and despite her misery, the training of years forced her to spring mechanically to obey; but suddenly she turned to him with a shrill appeal.