It was a strange thing to Judith to be left alone in the house, in charge of it and the sick man. Old Dilsey did the cooking and all the domestic labour. Had Wade been at home, and the patient any other than Creed Bonbright, she would have had a capable assistant at the nursing. Andy and Jeff tried to be as kind as they could. But they were an untamed, untrained pair, helpless and hapless at such matters, and their approaching wedding kept them often over at the Lusk place. From Iley Judith held savagely aloof.

It was on the second morning of her uncle’s absence that Dilsey Rust brought again that message from Blatch, and Judith caught at it. She had done her best; she had refrained from any questions; but the night before Creed told her without asking that Huldah had been in to see him twice again. As her patient’s physical strength notably increased, his appeal to her tender forbearance of course lessened, and the raw insult of the situation began to come home to her.

She put a shawl over her head and ran swiftly down through the chill November weather to the draw-bars, where in the big road outside Turrentine slouched against a post waiting for her. The man spoke over his shoulder.

“Howdy, Jude—you did come at last.”

“Ef yo’ goin’ to say anything to me, you’ll have to be mighty quick, Blatch,” she notified him, shivering. “I got to get right back.”

“They’s somebody new—and yet not so new—a-visitin’ in the Turkey Tracks that you’d like to know of,” he prompted coolly. “Ain’t that so?”

“Huldy,” she gasped, her dark eyes fixed upon his grey ones.

He nodded.

“I ’lowed you’d take an intrust in that thar business, an’ I thort as a friend you ort to be told of it,” he added virtuously.

“Where’s she at?” demanded Judith.

“Over at my house,” announced Turrentine easily, with a backward jerk of his head.

“At yo’ house!” echoed Judith; “at yo’ house! Why, hit ain’t decent.”

“Huh,” laughed Blatch. “I don’t know about decent. She was out thar takin’ the rain; she had nobody to roof her; an’ I bid her in, ’caze I’m in somewhat the same fix myse’f.”

“No one to roof her,” repeated Judith. “What’s henderin’ her from comin’ over this side the Gulch?”

“Well, seein’ the way she’s done Wade I reckon she ’lows she’d better keep away from his pap’s house. She’s at the outs with Iley—Jim Cal’s lady sont her word she needn’t never show her face thar agin. She gives it out to everybody that’ll listen at her talk that she’s skeered o’ you ’count o’ Bonbright.”

Judith studied his face with half-incredulous eyes.

“How long has she been there?” she interrogated keenly.

Turrentine seemed to take time for reflection.

“Lemme see,” he ruminated, “she come a Wednesday night. Hit was rainin’, ef you remember, an’ I hearn something outside, and it scairt me up some, fer fear it was revenuers. When I found hit was Huldy, I let her in, an she’s been thar ever sence.”

Wednesday night! It was Thursday morning that Creed had first announced the visit of his wife. Oh, it must be true! Judith trembled all through her vigorous young body with a fury of despair. As always, Blatchley had found the few and simple words to bid her worser angel forth. She even felt a kind of hateful relish for the quarrel. They had tricked her. They had made a fool of her. She had suffered so much. She longed to be avenged.

“Judy,” murmured Blatch softly, bending toward her but not laying a hand upon her, “you white as a piece o’ paper, an’ shakin’ from head to foot. That’s from stayin’ shet up in the house yonder nussin’ that feller Bonbright night an’ day like a hirelin’. W’y, he never did care nothin’ for ye only becaze ye was useful to him. Ye stood betwixt him an’ danger; ye he’ped him out when he needed it wust. An’ he had it in mind to fool ye from the first. Now him and Huldy Spiller has done it. Don’t you let ’em. You show ’em what you air. I’ve got a hoss out thar, and Selim’s down in the stable. I’ll put yo’ saddle on him. Git yo’ skirt, honey. Let’s you and me ride over to Squire Gaylord’s and be wedded. Then we’ll have the laugh on these here smart folks that tries to fool people.”

He leaned toward her, all the power of the man concentrated in his gaze. Perhaps he had never wanted anything in his twenty-seven years as he now wanted Judith Barrier and her farm and the rehabilitation that a union with her would give him. Once this girl’s husband, he could curtly refuse to rent to Jephthah Turrentine, who had, he knew, no lease. He could call into question the old man’s stewardship, and even up the short, bitter score between them. He could reverse that scene when he was sent packing and told to keep his foot off the place.

“Judy,” he breathed, deeply moved by all this, “don’t ye remember when we was—befo’ ever this feller come—Why, in them days I used to think shore we’d be wedded.”

Judith rested a hand on the bars and, lips apart, stared back into the eager eyes of the man who addressed her. Blatchley had always had some charm for the girl. Power he did not lack; and his lawlessness, his license, which might have daunted a feebler woman, liberated something correspondingly brave and audacious in her. He had been the first to pay court to her, and a girl does not easily forget that.

For a moment the balance swung even. Then it bore down to Blatch’s side. She would go. Yes, she would. Creed might have Huldah. The girl might be his wife, or his widow. She, Judith Barrier, would show them—she would show them. Her parted lips began to shape to a reckless yes. The word waited in her mind behind those lips all formed. Her swift imagination pictured to her herself riding away beside Blatch leaving the sick man who had been cause of so many humiliations to her to die or get well. Blatch, watching narrowly, read the coming consent in her face. His hand stole forward toward the draw-bars.

Her salvation was in a very small and commonplace thing. The picture of herself riding beside Blatch Turrentine brought back to her, with an awakening shock, the recollection of herself and Creed riding side by side, her arm across his shoulder, his drooping head against it. How purely happy she had been then—how innocent—how blest! What were these fires of torment that raged in her now? No, no! That might be lost to her; but even so, she could not decline from its dear memory to a mating like this. Without a word she turned and ran back to the house, never looking over her shoulder in response to the one or two cautious calls that Blatch sent after her.

Judith’s day was mercifully full of work. When Creed did not require her, Dilsey demanded help and direction, and one or two errands from outside kept her mind from sinking in upon itself. It was night-fall, Andy was lending her his awkward aid in the sick-room, when Jeff came in and beckoned the two of them out mysteriously.

“How’s Bonbright this evenin’, Jude? Do you reckon I could have speech with him?” he asked in a troubled tone.

Judith shook her head. Her own near approach to absolute failure in her charge that morning made her the more punctilious now.

“No.” She spoke positively. “Uncle Jep said he wasn’t to be werried about anything.”

“Why, he’s settin’ up some, ain’t he?” said the boy in surprise. “I thort he looked right peart.”

“Yes,” agreed Judith dejectedly, “he’s gettin’ his strength all right; he does look well. But you ax him questions, or name anything to him to trouble him, an’ it throws him right back. Uncle Jep says hit’s more his mind than his body now. What is it ye want from Creed? Cain’t I tend to it?”

“I don’t reckon a gal like you could he’p any,” Jeff said doubtfully. His eye wandered toward his twin. “I reckon this is men’s business. I’ve got word that Huldy Spiller—or some say Huldy Bonbright—is over at Blatch’s cabin, and he’s got her shut up.”

Judith’s heart gave a great leap as of terror; the thing was out at last—people knew it. Then that heavily beating heart sank sickeningly; what difference to her, though all the world knew it? Yet she held to her trust.

“Oh, shore not, Jeff. You cain’t nigh talk to him about nothin’ like that,” she maintained. “Uncle Jep made me promise that nothin’ should be named to him to excite him.”

“Well, then,” pursued Jeff, “pappy not bein’ here, nor Wade, and Jim Cal over at Spiller’s, an’ the gal not havin’ no men folks in reach, me an’ Andy has got to look after this thing. Fact is, Blatch sent word that ef we wanted her we could come over and git her.”

“I don’t know as we do want her—I don’t know as we do,” put in Andy. “And we both promised pappy that we wouldn’t set foot on the land whilst Blatch had it rented.”

“Then ag’in,” debated Jeff—“Oh, no, buddy, we cain’t leave the gal thar. We’re plumb obliged to find out if she wants to come away, anyhow.”

Andy turned to his cousin.

“What do you say, Jude? Ort we to go?”

Judith locked her hands hard together and held down her head, fighting out her battle. She longed to say no. She longed to shout out that Huldah Spiller might take care of herself, since she had been so unwomanly as to run after men and bring all this trouble on them. What she did say, at the end of a lengthened struggle, was:

“Yes, I think both of you ort to go. Can it be did quiet? You got to think of her good name.”

Jeff nodded.

“Well, how air we goin’ to be sure that gal’s over there?” inquired Andy, still half reluctant.

“Oh, she’s there,” returned Judith heavily; and when the boys regarded her with startled looks, “I ain’t seen her, but she’s been on the mountain since Thursday. She’s been slippin’ over to visit—her—Creed named it to me then.”

“Well that does settle it,” Andy concluded. “Reckon Blatch has shut her up for pure meanness. When was we to go? Was there any time sot?”

“To-night,” Jeff informed them. “Any time after ten o’clock’ll do—that was the word I got.”

“Well, that’ll be all right,” agreed Andy; “I can fix Creed up for the night, and ef we git Huldy away in the dark nobody need know of the business—not even Bonbright.”

A slow flush rose in Judith’s pale cheeks. But she offered no comment on this aspect of the case. She only said:

“Just do what you think best, and don’t name it to me again, please.” Then, as both boys looked wonderingly at her, she added haltingly, “I’ve got enough to werry over—with a sick man here on my hands, an’ Uncle Jep gone.”

She went to her room. When at midnight she slipped down as of custom to see how all fared in the sick-room, she found the patient sleeping quietly, and Andy ready for the trip across the Gulch. The boys were going unarmed; they felt no fear of treachery on Blatch’s part—it could profit him nothing to injure either of them in so public a way, and indeed he had never shown them any ill-will.