“What do you mean?”
“When I came up outside and told them that the miracle had been worked and the seamless raiment was inside the bolt, I thought it must be there.”
“Why, in the name of—”
“I had prayed so hard for help to do it that I thought it must be.”
“You prayed? To whom?”
“To—God.”
“To yourself?”
Dylks was silent again in the silence of a self-convicted criminal. He did not move.
Braile had been walking up and down again in his excitement, in his enjoyment of the psychological predicament, and again he stopped before Dylks. “Why, you poor bag of shorts!” he said. “I could almost feel sorry for you, in spite of the mischief you've made. Why, you oughtn't to be sent to the penitentiary, or even lynched. You ought to be put amongst the county idiots in the poorhouse, and—”
There came a soft plapping as of bare feet on the puncheon floor of the porch; hesitating about and then pausing at the door of the opposite room. Then there came with the increased smell of cooking, the talking of women. Presently the talking stopped and the plapping of the bare feet approached the door of the room shutting the two men in. The Squire set it slightly ajar, in spite of Dylks's involuntary, “Oh, don't!” and faced some one close to the opening.