He remained
looking after her--indignant, outraged, and unconvinced. There was a
rattling at the gate.
He remembered he had locked it. He opened it to the flushed pink cheeks
and dancing eyes of Susy. The rain was still dripping from her wet cloak
as she swung it from her shoulders.
"I know it all!--all that's happened," she burst out with half-girlish
exuberance and half the actress's declamation. "We met them all in the
road--posse and prisoners. Chief Thompson knew me and told me all. And
so you've done it--and you're master in your old house again. Clarence,
old boy! Jim said you wouldn't do it--said you'd weaken on account of
her! But I said 'No.' I knew you better, old Clarence, and I saw it in
your face, for all your stiffness! ha! But for all that I was mighty
nervous and uneasy, and I just made Jim send an excuse to the theatre
and we rushed it down here! Lordy! but it looks natural to see the old
house again! And she--you packed her off with the others--didn't you?
Tell me, Clarence," in her old appealing voice, "you shook her, too!"
Dazed and astounded, and yet experiencing a vague sense of relief with
something like his old tenderness towards the willful woman before him,
he had silently regarded her until her allusion to his wife recalled him
to himself.
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