“Bruce!” cried Betty, starting up as Carrington approached. “Oh, Bruce, I am so glad you have come—you are not hurt?” She accepted his presence without question. She had needed him and he had not failed her.
“We are none of us hurt, Betty,” he said gently, as he took her hand.
He saw that the suffering she had undergone during the preceding twenty-four hours had left its record on her tired face and in her heavy eyes. She retained a shuddering consciousness of the unchecked savagery of those last moments on the keel boat; she was still hearing the oaths of the men as they struggled together, the sound of blows, and the dreadful silences that had followed them. She turned from him, and there came the relief of tears.
“There, Betty, the danger is over now and you were so brave while it lasted. I can't bear to have you cry!”
“I was wild with fear—all that time on the boat, Bruce—” she faltered between her sobs. “I didn't know but they would find you out. I could only wait and hope—and pray!”
“I was in no danger, dear. Didn't the girl tell you I was to take the place of a man Slosson was expecting? He never doubted that I was that man until a light—a signal it must have been—on the shore at the head of the bayou betrayed me.”
“Where are we going now, Bruce? Not the way they went—” and Betty glanced out into the black void where the keel boat had merged into the gloom.
“No, no—but we can't get the raft back up-stream against the current, so the best thing is to land at the Bates' plantation below here; then as soon as you are able we can return to Belle Plain,” said Carrington.
There was an interval broken only by the occasional sweep of the great steering oar as Cavendish coaxed the raft out toward the channel. The thought of Charley Norton's murder rested on Carrington like a pall. Scarcely a week had elapsed since he quitted Thicket Point and in that week the hand of death had dealt with them impartially, and to what end? Then the miles he had traversed in his hopeless journey up-river translated themselves into a division of time as well as space. They were just so much further removed from the past with its blight of tragic terror. He turned and glanced at Betty. He saw that her eyes held their steady look of wistful pity that was for the dead man; yet in spite of this, and in spite of the bounds beyond which he would not let his imagination carry him, the future enriched with sudden promise unfolded itself. The deep sense of recovered hope stirred within him. He knew there must come a day when he would dare to speak of his love, and she would listen.
“It's best we should land at Bates' place—we can get teams there,” he went on to explain. “And, Betty, wherever we go we'll go together, dear. Cavendish doesn't look as if he had any very urgent business of his own, and I reckon the same is true of Yancy, so I am going to keep them with us. There are some points to be cleared up when we reach Belle Plain—some folks who'll have a lot to explain or else quit this part of the state! And I intend to see that you are not left alone until—until I have the right to take care of you for good and all—that's what you want me to do one of these days, isn't it, darling?” and his eyes, glowing and infinitely tender, dwelt on her upturned face.