Joel was deeply perturbed. His whole mental and spiritual being rose and fell on the billows of indecision. Finally he asked: "Is it just to visit the house and get some things? Is that all, Tilly?"
He saw her glance waver and sink to her lap. She took a deep, resolute breath. "What is the use?" she said, tremulously. "I cannot lie to you, Joel. You will either help me, knowing fully what I'm going for, or not at all. Joel, I want to see John's mother."
"His mother?" The plain man started and recoiled. "But why, oh, why, Tilly?"
She put her handkerchief to her writhing lips; she gulped and, with lowered eyes, half sobbed: "Because she is John's mother—that's all, Joel. I want to see, close at hand, the woman who gave my husband birth and nursed him when he was a baby. I saw her once when she sat behind me at a show. She looked at me and I looked at her. Somehow I think I'd know her better than any one else. Joel, she has lost her child and I have lost my husband. They have gone from us forever and ever. No power on earth ought to keep us two apart. No one else can tell how I feel or how she feels. I don't think she is as bad as people say, not deep down in her heart, anyway. She's done wrong, but so have all of us. Joel, you can help me or not, as you think best, but if you don't take me to that train I shall walk to it alone. I know my duty before God, and I shall do it. Joel, Joel, Joel"—she was speaking slowly, as if to formulate into words thoughts which lay deep beneath the surface of her torn being—"Joel, God is holding me accountable, in a way. Joel, if I had not deserted John he would have been alive to-day. Something would have arisen to have prevented my father from shooting him. I thought I was acting for the best, but I was excited and terrified. Do you think, feeling as I do, that I care what a few people here or at Ridgeville think about me?"
Joel rose to his feet. He was wearing his working-clothes. His coarse shoes and the hat in his gaunt hand were covered with dust from the barn which he had been cleaning in preparation for the winter's storage of grain. His rough shirt was open at the neck, the muscles of which were drawn taut. His brow and hands were beaded with sweat. He stood staring mountainward for a moment, rocked between two impulses. Presently he turned to her.
"It would be a question between old-fashioned men of honor," he said, "whether a gentleman could act as you ask me to act while you are intrusted to his protection, but you are now speaking of things, Tilly, which men have no right to decide upon. No bishop, no cardinal should refuse to go to a woman in distress, and neither should I!—neither should you. And so, if you feel that it is your duty to the memory of your husband to do this thing, I shall help you."
"Thank you, Joel." Tilly sobbed aloud. "I knew you would not desert me."
"And when do you want to go?" he inquired.
"In the morning, Joel."
"Then I shall be ready to take you," he said, turning away.