She watched him from the gate as he dashed away in the cloud of dust raised by the hoofs of his trotting horse. She estimated the time it would take him to reach the station, and dreaded hearing too soon the whistle of the coming train's locomotive. Fully ten minutes passed before she heard the whistle. Then she was sure that Joel would get aboard in time. She was sure, because she knew the man who was serving her.
That afternoon, rather late, her parents came home. They delivered the news to her that the court had acted most promptly and she was now no longer the legal wife of John Trott. She received the information as stolidly as if it were a foregone verdict and quietly turned from her harsh-faced parents and went up to her room.
"Not his wife?" She laughed to herself as she sat on her bed and locked her limp hands in her lap. "As if a lawyer, a judge, and a few jurymen could take my husband from me as easily as that! Huh! I'd live with him without marriage if that is all there is to marriage. Joel will see him to-night. Joel will tell him how I feel, and John will wait till I can go to him. I know he loves me. I know that, and nothing else counts—nothing!"
Later she descended the stairs and went into the kitchen where her mother was at work. "Let me help you, mother," she said, taking the broom from Mrs. Whaley's hands and beginning to sweep the floor. "You must have had a lot to do while I was away."
Mrs. Whaley stood surprised for a moment, started to speak, hesitated, and then went out to where her husband sat in the slanting rays of the sun under an apple-tree.
"Where is she now?" he asked, glancing up from the open Bible and manuscript on his knee.
"She's sweeping in the kitchen."
"You don't say!" he said, laconically. "Well, when she is through in there send her here to me. I've got a straight talk for her. Things can't rest exactly on the same basis as they used to, as far as she is concerned. She has got to be on probation-like if she stays on under my roof. A great deal will depend on her conduct from now on. Folks will be inclined to slough away from us for a while. Already they blame you and me, and say we were too eager to marry her off. Nothing like this ever happened to any member of my church. It is bad in every way, and may be worse. I'm going to pray that no—no living stigma may follow it. You know what I mean. You know that I don't want to be the grandfather of Liz Trott's grandchild, and I won't—I won't if there is a just God in heaven. When Tilly is through that work send her to me."
"I'll do nothing of the sort," the woman said. "She is my child, as well as yours, and you'd better let well enough alone."
"What do you mean?" he growled, his grisly brows meeting, the old fanatical gleams in his eyes.