"What sort of things?" Eperson asked, waxing indignant.
"Why, you know—they say that Mr. Trott took her to his mother's house and introduced her to the worst sort of folks. There isn't a word of truth in it. Tilly has not yet even met the woman. Tilly and he had a cottage all to themselves. She told me that herself."
Joel groaned angrily. "I'm not surprised at anything the people around here would say and believe," he said, his lips drawn tight, his eyes holding fierce fires that were bursting into flames.
"Joel," Martha Jane said, as they were nearing their home, "you must take yourself in hand. This is showing on you. Tilly's marriage was bad enough, but this is hurting you even more."
"Oh, don't bother about me!" he cried, testily. "I'm a man and can stand anything. But you must look after her. Do you understand? You must come in to-morrow early and stay all day. She will need somebody besides that sour-faced, crabbed old pair that is with her. They will kill her or drive her insane."
"I'll do it—you may depend on me, brother," Martha Jane promised, as he helped her from the buggy at the gate.
CHAPTER XXXVI
On the morning following their arrival at Bristol, John and Dora took the train for New York. "We'll sit in the chair-car," he proposed. "It has revolving fans and is more roomy. They say this train is usually crowded."
Dora smiled expectantly as she followed him into the luxurious coach. She had slept well, had eaten a good breakfast, and seemed brighter than she had the day before. She was still a grotesque-looking creature in the dress which was too long for a child of her age, and the hat that was too large, being one Jane Holder, in one of her rare moments of mild self-reproach, had discarded and hastily retrimmed for her niece. But John Trott was not critical of outward appearances. There was something beneath the surface in Dora—an unspoken reliance on him, a gentle betrayal of pride and confidence in him, not to mention her abject helplessness, which atoned for all external shortcomings. The whole world looked dark to him, but he had determined that Dora should not dwell in the shadow, if he could prevent it.