"I couldn't stand that," Martin cried out. "Oh, don't think it!"
Charles said nothing, and there was no response from Kenneth, who was grimly peering through the crack. They saw Rowland, bareheaded, walking leisurely from the veranda to the gate. They saw him shaking hands over the buggy-wheels with the sheriff. They could not, at that distance, read his face. Of what was taking place the three watchers could form no idea. Presently they saw Mary come down the walk, pass through the gate, and shake hands with the sheriff.
"Sister means to find out if anything has gone wrong, so she can warn us," Kenneth said. "Brown, this looks pretty tough on us. We were thinking everything was all right, but this looks bad."
Still Charles said nothing. His face, only half illumined by the light through the crack, which struck across his fixed eyes, was grim and perplexed.
They saw Mary at her father's side, but the hood of her sunbonnet hid her face from view. The three stood talking for several minutes; then Mary was seen leaving and turning in their direction.
"She's coming to tell us," Kenneth said. "Now, we'll know. Keep still. Maybe she is afraid we'll be seen or heard at work."
Mary appeared in the doorway. She removed her bonnet and smiled reassuringly. "Frightened out of your skins, I'll bet," she jested. "I came to tell you. He is not looking for you. He said so plainly, for he saw how worried I was. In fact, he said that Tobe was still improving, and hinted—he didn't say so in so many words—but he hinted that he knew you both were about the place, and that he was not going to molest you now that Tobe is out of danger."
Charles was staring at her fixedly; the animation that should have been in his face was absent. "Then he wanted to see your father about something else?" he said.
"Yes, some business, or—" Mary broke off, and with a sudden shadow across her face she stood staring at him. "I don't know what he wanted to see father about. It seemed to me that it was of a private nature, and so—so that's why I came away."
"Gee! what does it amount to, since he's letting us go?" said Martin. He stepped to his sister's side and stood with his arm around her waist. For once she seemed unaware of the boy's presence. She was recalling something Albert Frazier had said about the sheriff's opinion of Charles. Could the present visit pertain to him?