householder he questioned her. Where had the man come by the wound? For
they saw the blood-stained bandages she clasped.

Yesterday, she explained, he had received a slight bullet-wound by
accident, and to-day, in their long travel, the loss of blood had
disabled him.

"Does he belong to you, young lady?"

Susannah busied herself with the bandages for a moment, but terror had
carried her far. She replied with gentle decision, "He is my husband."




CHAPTER IX.


"It is our fault."

That evening Ephraim Croom stood in his father's sitting-room, near the
door of the dark stair that led up to his own rooms. His shoulders were
drooping. His face was gray and haggard. Even his hair and beard, damp,
unkempt, seemed to express remorse in their outline. He stood doggedly
facing his father and mother, repeating the thing that he saw to be
true, but with no further words to interpret his insight.

To his parents his opinions, his attitude, appeared as an outrage upon
reason. His father looked at him with greater severity than he had ever
before exercised upon his only child. "I reckon, Ephraim, that you speak