“Marse Seth, young miss, she—”
“She sent a note to Alan Bishop, didn't she?” interpolated the Colonel.
“Marster, I didn't know it was any harm. I des 'lowed it was some prank o' young miss'. Oh, Lordy!”
“You might know you'd do suppen, you old sap-haid,” broke in Aunt Milly from the darkness of the cabin. “I kin count on you ever' time.”
“Get back in bed,” ordered the Colonel, and he walked calmly into his room and lay down again. His wife followed him, standing in the middle of the room.
“Aren't you going to do anything?” she said. Her voice was charged with a blending of tears and a sort of feminine eagerness that is beyond the comprehension of man.
“Do anything? What do you think I ought to do? Raise an alarm, ring the church-bells, and call out the hook-and-ladder company? Huh! She's made her bed; let her lie on it.”
“You are heartless—you have no feeling,” cried his wife. The very core of her desire was to get him to talk about the matter. If he was not going to rouse the neighborhood, and thus furnish some one to talk to, he, at least, ought to be communicative.
“Well, you'd better go to bed,” snarled her husband.
“No”—she scratched a match and lighted a candle—“I'm going up-stairs and see if she left a note. Now, you see, I had to think of that. The poor girl may have written something.”