Ben was deeply touched. Pity and pride both pierced his young heart. Now he fully realized for the first time the wonder and beauty of his mother, of the thing that brightened and softened in her brave eyes, her love, her loneliness, her love for him. And now she called him an O’Dell; and he knew that she thought of all O’Dells as men possessed of the qualities of his heroic father. His heart glowed with pride.
“I’ll remember, dear—but we were really in a hurry, mother,” he answered.
For fully ten minutes he felt twenty years older than his age.
After Ben and Uncle Jim had eaten and the little girl had gone out to the orchard with a book Ben told his mother all they had learned from old Noel Sabattis and of the clew he had discovered to the identity of Balenger’s murderer. He showed her the pen and comb. She felt remorse for having doubted poor Sherwood’s innocence.
“Then he must be crazy—and that is almost as unfortunate,” she said. “It is almost as bad for both of them.”
“I don’t believe he’s really insane,” said Ben. “He acted like it part of the time, by Noel’s account, but not all the time. He was sane enough when he dropped the pirogue down the rapids on a rope instead of trying to run them. His nerves are bad and I guess he’s sick. What Noel said sounded to me as if he was sick with fever—and he’s afraid—afraid of all sorts of things. But I guess he’d soon be all right if he knew he was safe from the law and was decently treated. He hasn’t got Balenger to worry about now. Was any more food taken while we were away, mother?”
“You still think it is Richard Sherwood who takes the food?” she asked nervously.
“I think so more than ever now, since Noel told us about him. He hadn’t the nerve to go far away from his daughter.”
“I wouldn’t wonder if Ben’s right,” said McAllister.
“I hope he isn’t!” exclaimed Mrs. O’Dell in a distressed voice. “A cruel thing happened last night and it was my fault. I—I told Ian about the thefts when he asked me why I was afraid to sleep without a man in the house. I didn’t want him to think me just a—an unreasoning coward. And he set a trap in the bread box last night, a steel fox trap. I didn’t know anything about it. I would have taken it away if I had known.”