“I ain't talkin' without grounds.” Ralph's faint voice trailed away on its wave of agony. “Friends have come to me an' reported the doin's of the two at singin'. He fetches her a bunch of flowers every day, an' they set an' sing out o' the same book with the'r heads plumped together. He walks mighty nigh all the way home with her through the woods, an' sneaks off as soon as they git in sight o' the house. He makes all manner o' fun o' me—tellin' folks, so I've been told, that I can't last long, an' that she never knowed what rale healthy love was nohow.”
Paul's hand was now on his father's head, and he was gently stroking the long, thick hair, though his eyes were blazing, his breast heaving, as from an inner tempest.
Ralph turned and looked toward the house. The light was out now, and there was no sound.
“I reckon she's gone back to sleep,” Ralph wailed, bitterly. “What does she care how I feel? She could have no idea, you couldn't neither, Paul, fur you are too young. But maybe some day you will know the awful, awful sting o' havin' the world look on in scorn, while a big strappin' brute of a daredevil an' the mother o' yore child—oh, my God! I can't stand it—I jest can't! I'd die a million deaths rather than—it's in the Rundel blood, I reckon, planted thar deep by generations an' generations o' proud folks. I'm goin' to kill 'im, Paul. I don't know when or how, exactly, but it's got to be done, if God will only give me the strength. It won't be no sin; it couldn't be; it would be just wipin' out one o' the slimy vipers o' life.”
“If you don't, I will, father. I swear it here an' now,” the boy solemnly vowed, removing his hand from the cold brow and looking off in the mystical light which lay over the fields.
“Huh, we won't both have to do it!” Ralph spoke as if half dreaming, certainly not realizing his son's frame of mind. “It never would be any satisfaction to have it said that it took two of us to fix 'im, even if he is rated high on his fightin' record. No, that's my job; you keep clean out of it!”
“Come to my bed, father.” Paul caught his arm and drew him gently from the fence. “You are shakin' from head to foot; your teeth are chatterin', an' you are cold through an' through.”
Ralph allowed himself to be led along; now and then he would stumble over a tuft of grass, as if he had lost the power of lifting his feet. Once he paused, threw his arms about his son's shoulder, and said, almost in fright, as he bore down heavily:
“I feel odd, powerful odd. I feel cold clean through to my insides, like my entrails was turnin' to rock. I can hardly git my breath. I don't seem to—to send it clean down. It stops in my chest like, an' I am all of a quiver, an' weak, an' dizzy-like. I can't see a yard ahead of me.”
“You'll feel better when you are in bed,” Paul said, soothingly, and he led his father on to the quiet, house and into his room. He undressed him, wiped the dew from his numb, bloodless feet on a towel, and made him lie down.