"Yes, yes; he is very dear to me. What is it? What has happened to him? Tell me quickly!"
"Don't get excited. It ain't no great matter. But they are looking for him to arrest him."
"Arrest Dorn? For what?"
"Murder and robbery."
Mary gave a little cry and would have fallen, had not Billy caught her; and holding her against the fence, awkwardly enough, but firmly, adjured her:
"Steady, steady! Brace up! Hold hard!"
In a few moments she regained sufficient control over herself to listen while the old sailor related to her, with characteristic circumstantiality of detail, all the events of the preceding evening leading up to his visit to her. She did not for an instant imagine that Dorn could possibly have been guilty of such crimes, but the mere idea of his being suspected of them so horrified her as almost to deprive her of the power of reasoning. How could he have fallen under suspicion? How could it come to be known that he was in the neighborhood on that fatal night? There was but one person, she believed, besides herself who knew of his visit, and that was Ruth Lenox. Ah, yes! There was her aunt, who suspected it at least, and who had questioned her so sharply about him. Ruth Lenox would never have breathed such a foul calumny against Dorn. But her aunt? "Yes, it would be just like her," thought Mary.
Billy had no further information to impart, no advice to give, and no consolations to offer. The latter would have been especially out of his line. It seemed to him enough to give a person warning to look out for him or herself, as the case might be; which, he reasoned, would be all he would require under any circumstances; and so, having discharged his errand to the best of his ability in the manner we have seen, he relighted his pipe and "got under way," with a clear conscience as to having done his duty by a shipmate.
XV.
AND THE TROUBLE BEGINS.
Ruth Lenox was, just at this time, on a brief visit to the house of a married brother, who lived near Babylon; so that Mary was not able to consult with her only confidante until the second day after Billy Prangle's visit. Who could tell the agony of mind she felt during that time as the leaden hours dragged slowly by? It seemed to her fearful and excited imagination as if at any moment she was liable to hear of her lover's capture and imprisonment, and she was powerless to do aught to save him. One hope only suggested itself to her mind: that he might have sailed away from New Haven before his pursuers could reach him, and that by the time of his return from the West Indies the real murderer might be discovered, and the foul suspicion against Dorn entirely dissipated. But she was not left to cherish in peace even that small germ of comfort, for Aunt Thatcher, with the astuteness and malice of a feminine fiend—and if there is a distinction of sex among the devils, the female ones must surely be far the worst—divined that the sailor who visited Mary had come from Dorn, or in his interest, and embittered every hour of the poor girl's life by the wagging of her venomous tongue. As soon as Billy had gone away she demanded to know what his business was; and receiving no reply—for Mary felt that she would rather have died than give her aunt the satisfaction of knowing the hideous intelligence he brought—proceeded to treat the subject in her own lively fashion.