“Why—why—” She seemed to be making a valiant effort at self-control, and then he noticed that her voice was quivering and that she was quite pale.
“I really didn’t want to buy anything,” she said. “Mother sent me to tell Mr. Peters that she couldn’t possibly have the butter ready before tomorrow.”
“Oh, the butter!” Floyd said, studying her face and manner in perplexity.
“Yes,” the girl went on, “she promised to have ten pounds ready to send to Darley, but the calves got to the cows and spoiled everything. That threw her at least a day behind.”
“Oh, that don’t make a bit o’ difference to us, Miss Cynthia,” the clerk cried out from the scales, where he was weighing a parcel of sugar. “Our wagon ain’t going over till Saturday, nohow.”
“Well, she will certainly be glad,” the girl returned in a tone of relief, and she moved toward the door. Floyd, still wondering, went with her to the sidewalk.
“You look pale,” he said tentatively, “and—and, well, the truth is, I have never seen you just this way, Cynthia. Have you been having more trouble at home? Is your mother still determined that we sha’n’t have any more of those delightful buggy-rides?”
“It wasn’t that—today,” she said, her eyes raised to his in a glance that, somehow, went straight to his heart. “I’ll tell you. As I came on, I had just reached Sim Tompkins’s field, where he was planting corn and burning stumps, when a negro—one of Captain Duncan’s hands—passed on a mule. I didn’t hear what he said, but when I came to Sim he had stopped plowing and was leaning over the fence saying, ‘Awful, horrible!’ and so on. I asked him what had happened and he told me—” she dropped her eyes, her words hung in her throat and she put a slender, tapering, though firm and sun-browned, hand to her lips.
“Go on,” Floyd urged her, “Tompkins said——”
“He said,” the girl swallowed, “that you and Jeff Wade had had words in front of the store and that Wade had shot and killed you. I—I—didn’t stop to inquire of anyone—I thought it was true—and came on here. When I saw you just then absolutely unharmed I—I—of course—it surprised me—or—I mean——”