Their supper was soon ended, and on their return to the veranda they found Mary still watching the road. "I see him, I think," she announced, wearily. "It looks like a man with a broad-brimmed hat on. Yes, that is Albert."
The rider drew in at the gate and dismounted, leading his horse into the yard and up to the steps. "You must excuse me, little girl," he said. "I couldn't make it earlier and get the news you wanted. The doctor was making an examination and was delayed. Tobe fainted several times. He is weak, the doctor says tell you, but there is still hope." Here catching sight of Charles, he continued, gruffly: "Say, fellow, put up my horse. And, say, give him a pail of water from the well and some shelled corn and a bundle of fodder."
Starting in surprise, Charles was about to thunder out a furious reply; to save himself from such a display of temper in the presence of a lady he simply turned back into the sitting-room.
"Did he hear me?" he heard Frazier asking his host, in a rising tone of anger.
"He was not hired for that sort of work, Albert," the old man said, pacifically. "He has been in the field ever since sunup. Zilla takes care of our own stock. Come, I'll go with you and show you the stall and the feed."
Frazier swore aloud and muttered something about "tramp farm-hands" which Charles could not catch; then he and Rowland led the horse to the stable. Charles was standing in the center of the room when Mary came in. She walked straight up to him and laid her hand on his arm.
"Don't let that bother you; please don't!" she urged, excitedly. "I don't want you to have trouble with him. He is a dangerous sort of man. If he takes a dislike to you he will do his best to injure you, and he has it in his power to do all sorts of things, along with his brother as an officer of the law."
"I understand. I have already heard a few things he has said about me," Charles replied, still furious, and yet trying to calm himself. "I know the kind of man he is exactly. But you are in trouble, and I shall not worry you in the matter. If he insults me again I'll try to overlook it—I will overlook it."
"Thank you," Mary said, gently and sweetly, in a voice which quivered with curbed emotion, "but he mustn't do it again. I must talk to him. He has no right to come here giving orders like that to people who have been as kind and unselfish as you have been. Oh, I don't know what I am to do, Mr. Brown! When he was telling about how weak Tobe Keith was my very soul seemed to die in my body."
The room was dimly lighted by an oil-lamp on a table in the center of the room. She stood facing him, her wondrous eyes filling with tears of anxiety, her lips twitching, her brows knitted, her hands clasped over her snowy apron.