Warren clasped the outstretched hand and clung to it as if for some sort of support in the strange new storm which was tossing him as he had never been tossed before.
“I can't make you out, Paul,” he fairly sobbed; “by God, I can't! Seems like you are foolin', an' then ag'in I know you ain't—yes, I know you ain't!”
“No, I'm in earnest,” Paul returned. “Do you think my mother will be back soon?”
“Yes; but you stay here an' let me step down whar she's at,” Warren proposed, considerately. “She ain't so well—in fact, she might get upset if—if she saw' you all of a sudden. I'll run down an'—an' tell her you are friendly. That'll be the main thing. She's been afraid you an' me would act the fool ag'in. She will be relieved and astonished. You wait here. I'll go tell 'er.”
When Warren had stalked away in the gloom Paul went to the cabin-door and glanced within. The pine-knots burning under the open fire of logs, the ends of which rested on stones, lighted the poor room, from which musty odors emerged, and he shuddered and turned away. Passing around the cabin, he approached the neat cottage near by. He went up on the little vine-clad porch and peered through the window's and side-lights of the door. Putting his hand into his pocket, he took out a key, and, thrusting it into the lock, he opened the door and entered. Striking a match, he held it above his head and went into all the rooms.
CHAPTER XVII
WARREN strode down the narrow winding path through the meadow. He crossed a swift-flowing creek on a narrow, sagging foot-log and went on toward the swamp. When he was some distance from the cabin he descried, beyond a patch of blackberry vines and a morass full of pond-lilies and bulrushes, the blurred outlines of a solitary figure. Then an unexpected sound fell upon his ears. It was a piping, uncertain voice endeavoring to run the scale after the manner of the exercises in a rural singing-class. It was Mrs. Warren. She was strolling toward him, beating time with a stiff index-finger held out before her.
“That's her!” Jeff mused. “She'll sing a different tune when I tell her what I know. By gum, the boy certainly floored me! Who would 'a thought it? Not me, the Lord knows.”