But Nettie stood as if paralyzed, her eyes widening and filling with tears. “Oh, you’ve been so good—mayn’t I see him—mayn’t I bid him good-by?” she begged.
Charlotte lifted her voice to answer Blake. “Yes, Emory; stay where you are; I’m bringing Hope,” she called. “Hurry!” she whispered to the other woman. “It won’t do you any good to see him. Think of what he’s done. Hurry, I say!”
Nettie put her hand up to her head. “I—I can’t,” she murmured. She swayed a little, and before Charlotte could reach out to catch her she had slipped to the ground.
At the same moment Blake came out of the back door of the house. For an instant he stared in bewilderment. Then he was at Nettie’s side and had lifted her in his arms.
Charlotte saw his face as he kissed her. A moment later she was indoors on her knees beside her bed, with her face buried in the cover and her hands clutching it.
A cold wind swept through the house. Front and back the doors stood open. The sun was already low in the west and the evening promised to be chill. Presently Charlotte rose. She closed the front door carefully, wrapped Hope in a cloak, and, with her child on her arm, passed out at the back.
Blake had stretched his wife on the back porch and was bending over her. He looked up, and at sight of Charlotte’s face he straightened himself.
She paused an instant. “I’m starting to harness the horse,” she said. “You can catch the night train at Antioch if I drive fast.”
He stood silent, his face working. It was as if strength were being born in him to say something in his own defence.
“She has plans,” Charlotte added. “You’d better pick up some of your things in the house.”