"Does she know about Edward?" Baird asked of Ben. He had followed Ben to the barn, and that was his first anxious question.

"Yes. I tol' her. She had to be told—I couldn't keep it from her. I tol' her before Sue come."

"God! How did she take it?"

Ben's eyes lighted. "Like a Penniman—or a Westmo' would take it!"

"You had courage," Baird breathed in relief. "I didn't dare tell her."

"I knowed who I talked to," Ben returned deeply. "Ann growed up under my han'—I know the blood that's in Ann. She's got courage, Ann has—I weren't afraid."

It was Ben Brokaw, not the Penniman family, who had come in out of the darkness and the rain and had watched over Ann while Baird had gone for the doctor. Between three and four o'clock, the sleeping collie had roused and gone out, and a few minutes later Baird had heard the approach of some one. When he sprang up, it was Ben who had confronted him, dripping wet, splashed with mud, small eyes peering and amazed. He had looked at Ann, prostrate, an instant of partial comprehension, then he had looked, as redly as any enraged animal, at Baird.

Baird's explanation had been succinct, and, after a moment of grief-stricken understanding, Ben had shown even a shrewder grasp of the situation than Baird himself. Their consultation had been a hurried one, but when Baird galloped off through the rain he had been supported by the certainty that he had left both love and wisdom watching over Ann. There was a capable brain and a father's tender heart in Bear Brokaw's grotesque body—and a dog's faithfulness.

It was after sunrise when Baird had brought the doctor to the Pennimans' door, and it was Sue Penniman, haggard but collected, not Ben, who had opened to them.

"How is she?" had been Baird's instant question.

"We think she's better. She's awake an' able to talk."

Baird had held Sue's eye. "I've told the doctor Ben sent me for him. I couldn't tell him anything about the accident, only that she must have lain unconscious for a long time."

Sue met his look steadily. "We'll tell him about it," she said.

"Where is Ben?" Baird had asked.

"He just went out to the barn."

Baird had followed and had found Ben seated on a box in the wagon-shed, whittling and swaying as he worked. Any one who knew Ben well could have told Baird that Ben always whittled and swayed when thinking deeply or when perturbed; that he always carried bits of pine in his pockets, and that under his handling they usually became figure-fours. Ben had heard Baird's hasty approach, but he had not looked up until Baird was upon him with his anxious question.

Ben thought, as he watched Baird's partial relief, that the young fellow looked pretty thoroughly "done." The rain had washed most of the mud from his trousers, but he was still well smudged with it and soaking wet, his face gray-white and his eyes red-rimmed.

"You better set down while you wait fo' what the doctor has to say," he advised in a kindly growl. "Emergencies had oughter be met standin' and suspense sittin'. You've stood up pretty good against the first, reckon you can do the right thing by the second.... There's a box strong enough to hol' you, over there."

Baird brought it and sat down opposite Ben.

"You're about as wet and all in as I am," he remarked, in answer to the kindly note in Ben's voice. The big creature was just as Baird had seen him last, wet and muddy and queerly mottled about his cheeks and nose, red patches upon the nearest approach to pallor his tanned face could attain.

"A wettin' ain't nothin' to me," Ben said, "but I done somethin' the same things you done last night." Then, either to ease Baird's suspense or for some other reason, he continued: "I was tellin' you last night it was me foun' the hole in the bridge an' what was below, an' we agreed I must have come on it a little after you'd took Ann away.... You see, when I run to Westmo' to tell Judith about Edward, she says, 'Ben, Garvin ain't here. You take the word to the Copeleys first, go quick, then try to meet up with Garvin.' I done what she says. I had a hard time findin' Garvin, though. I got the first word of him at the club. Everybody were gone from there to tell everybody else what a Westmo' had done to hisself, an' the cook were the only one left. He said a while befo' he'd heard some one gettin' out Garvin's automobile from the shed—seems he'd been keepin' it there, at the club. The cook reckoned it was Garvin that some one must have tol' Garvin what had happened, an' he'd took the automobile so's to get to Westmo' in a hurry. I started down the Post-Road then, an' I come upon what had happened. My lord!" Ben paused, then went on. "Well, I dragged some rails acrost the road an' went fo' help, an' we got the las' man bearin' the name of Westmo' back to his house."

In spite of his efforts, Ben's voice had grown unsteady, and he whittled violently and in silence for a few moments, until speech escaped him: "It begun to rain on us befo' we got to Westmo', like the sky were weepin' over the sins of them that brung us into the world. That po' thing we was carryin'—'tweren't none of his fault. An' we builds jails an' madhouses fo' the like of him, an' jest goes right on fillin' them.... Garvin weren't never jest right, Mr. Baird. Them two youngest Westmo's—Sarah an' Garvin—'twere their pa should answer fo' them ... an' yet, what right hev I talkin' like that! There didn't no one teach sense to men like the ole colonel an' ole Mr. Penniman. I've jest got one big pity fo' every one of them—particular fo' them that's left."

"He nearly did for Ann—I'm not thinking of his forebears," Baird said bitterly.

Ben collected himself. "He was jest out of his mind—you can't judge him like you would a sane man.... You know, of co's', that Edward cared a lot for Ann and she fo' him, an' that Garvin were mad over her, like he would be, an' that she wouldn't have him. If you don't know, I'm telling you, an' fo' Ann's sake, it's a thing we ain't goin' to speak about to others. I'll tell you, too, what Ann tol' me when her an' me were talkin', befo' Sue come back. Ann tol' me she was sittin' in the dark on the porch an' Garvin come up sudden an' tol' her Edward were hurt an' dyin' an' askin' fo' her to come. He'd brought his automobile to the cedar road, an' that's what he must have been doin' when the cook heard him. I know his horse was at the club barn when I was there, because I seen it there. Ann says she went off quick with him, she weren't thinkin' of nobody but Edward, an' they started fo' the Post-Road. She didn't suspicion at first that Garvin weren't in his right mind, but when they began to tear down the Post-Road he spoke queer, an' jest befo' they struck the bridge she was sure he was clean mad. She was so scart she stood up, an' the next thing they was throwed. It was her standin' up saved her, I reckon. Jest what drove Garvin mad we'll never know. How much he knowed of what's happened, or jest what he intended to do, it's beyond us to tell, but that he was clean beside hisself, that's certain."

Baird had listened to Ben's explanation. It fitted in with much that he knew and with much that he had suspected, and he guessed that Ben could have told him a great deal more had he chosen to do so. Ben loved Ann, as a father loves his daughter, so much Baird had discovered during the night, and, also, that Ben was faithful to both the Pennimans and the Westmores. In his weariness and anxiety, Baird refused to think of it. What did it matter—if only Ann pulled through unshattered?

Baird was sick with fatigue, racked still by anxiety, and angered by Coats Penniman's neglect of his daughter. "Where were Ann's people all night—why did they leave Ann to fall into a trap like that?" he demanded.

Ben worked away at his stick. "That were a mystery to me, till Sue come. It was natural enough, though, how that happened. Coats, he had to go to the city, an' Sue, she drove in with him, early in the evenin'. They'd left word with Ann they'd be gone late. They knowed I'm always here in the evenin'—I ain't moved off this place a single evenin', not in weeks. They weren't worryin' about Ann's not bein' safe. But last evenin' I weren't here, an' you know why. Sue tells me they were drivin' Billy, an' you know what he is. Come time to get home, they had trouble with him. He's a devil, that horse, a good traveler, but that's all. He give Coats' shoulder a bad wrench. There weren't no trains they could get till near mornin', an' Sue she took the first train out an' walked up from the station, leavin' Coats to dispose of Billy and come out later. Sue were worried to death over her father an' Ann, she looked like a ghost when she come in, an' ready to drop, but she come to when she seen what trouble she'd come back to.... That's Penniman fo' you, jest like Miss Judith's stiff upper lip is Westmo'. These southern ladies, Mr. Baird, whose mothers done stood fas' while their men was bein' shot to pieces in the war—their mothers' blood's in them, all right! They'll stand up to anything, they will, an' gamble on a chance cooler nor any man!" Ben spoke with a profound admiration that dignified even his language.

Baird thought of Judith and how he had bent to her hand. But he had learned a surprising thing. "You don't tell me that old Mr. Penniman was in the house all the time I was there?" he exclaimed. "Why, I pounded the door and shouted."

"Sure he was there—up to his room in the front. He's fearful deaf an' he were asleep. He never heared you. I forgot to tell you, when we were plannin' quick of how to keep from everybody's knowin' that Ann was with Garvin. All my mind was on gettin' the doctor to her an' keepin' Ann's name from bein' mixed up in what's happened, an' so was yours."

"Will Miss Penniman be able to carry it through?" Baird asked anxiously.

"She will! I've done talked to her."

"And Ann?"

"Ann's too sick to talk—that's her answer," Ben returned with decision. "I tol' you I'd find the right thing to say." He pointed: "You see that there hole, where fodder is throwed down to the cows? Ann fell through there—it's a consid'able fall—more'n fifteen feet an' it won't be the first case of the kind the doctor has had to do with. I say that I foun' Ann down there, onconscious, an' any that doubts my word can come to me! I ain't never judged a lie a lie if it were tol' to help a woman—it's about the only chanst a man has to make up to his ma fo' men's havin' fastened the story of Eve to her."

In spite of his anxiety, Baird smiled. He liked Ben, and for much the same reasons as he had liked Edward Westmore; Ben Brokaw was every whit as true a gentleman. Baird thought of Edward's gentleness and consideration to women. "Ben?" he asked abruptly. "Why did Edward kill himself? Ann loved him, and you say he loved her—why did he hurt her like that? There appears to be no doubt about it, for the doctor told me that the pistol was smoked and that the wound showed that it had been fired at close range. The reason Mr. Copeley gave me—that Edward had heart trouble—isn't sufficient reason to me. Why in the name of heaven did he do such a thing!"

Ben stopped his work. But he did not look at Baird; he looked out at the struggle between sun and mist. After a considerable pause, he said slowly, "It seems the cruelest thing in all this night's work, don't it?... I can't explain it.... The Ridge'll give its reasons, an' first among them, that there is knowed to be one Westmo' whose mind ain't right, an' that now the thing's showed itself in Edward.... It's all right your askin' me—I know you are considerin' Ann same as I am. You can ask me anything you like an' I'll answer to the best of my ability, but it's a thing I won't discuss with nobody else. I thought a heap of Edward—I don't want to talk about it. My biggest trouble now is Ann."

If Ben intended to divert Baird, he succeeded. Baird moved restlessly, then got up. "He's in there a long time!" he said through his teeth.

He went to the door and looked out at the misty morning. It had been a steady, deep-sinking rain, like the satisfying answer to a prayer, and now the sun was fighting the steaming moisture, trying to work its vivifying will upon the growing things; in an hour's time it would triumphantly climb the heavens.

Ben looked at Baird's drooping shoulders. The boy was almost falling from fatigue. He was certainly a "cool-head," but a boy, nevertheless; a young fellow experiencing his first big trouble, and not knowing just what to make of it. He loved Ann completely, he had shown that, a somewhat astonishing thing in one of his rough-and-ready sort, Ben thought. If the doctor brought them bad news, they were both going to suffer.

Baird straightened and turned. "He's coming," he said.

Ben rose uncertainly to his feet. "You go ask him," he returned in his deepest growl.

But Baird was already on his way. The doctor's buggy had come into view, and Ben watched Baird go. He peered intently at the group, the doctor bent forward a little and Baird standing with one hand on the dashboard, as if for support.... The buggy moved on, and, for a moment, Ben could not make out whether Baird was returning laggingly or not. Then he saw that he came with head up, and Ben stopped swaying.

Baird's tired eyes were alight. "Ben, he says there's no serious injury, just a severe shock. It was the concussion made her unconscious so long. He said she might never have come out from it, that many don't, but that she had. And he says her spine's all right." It was the fear that had harried them both, and to which neither had referred.

"Um!" said Ben. It was an expressive monosyllable.

The two looked at each other in the way usual with men when uplifted and yet held by awkwardness.

"I'm going to the club now," Baird said.

And Ben asked as prosaically, "Where's your horse?"

"I left him in the doctor's stable—I don't mind walking.... I'll come over this afternoon." And he went.

Ben stood for a time, considering, and the color that for a few moments had dulled the patches on his face gradually faded. One trouble had been lifted from his mind, but it was crowded with others. He was thinking of Judith Westmore—and intently of Coats Penniman. Sue had done her best, and he had listened without questioning, but she had not deceived his intelligence. Ann had told him that they had found Garvin's letters. Coats' sudden going and his failure to return were curious things. Was it possible that he had been mistaken? And that he had misled Judith?... If he had, he had unwittingly saved a Penniman at a pretty big price to a Westmore.

Ben was thinking anxiously of the future.