telltale gash in the
hood, carried it through the kitchen and set it outside the door, in the
shed.

"I'll carry it up into the shed chamber to-morrer," he said, in the same
tortured voice.

Then he took his lamp and turned to go. He was as much surprised at
himself as she could have guessed. For some reason--and he did not know
the reason--he could not bear to leave her there in the dark with the
silent witness standing by to cry out against him. Yet this he did not
think. He only knew he must get the cradle out of the room and do it
quickly. When he had reached the door to the enclosed staircase, her
voice halted him so abruptly that the light quivered in his hand.

"Isr'el," it called, "you're real good. Don't you be cold. There's a
blanket on the foot."

But though he hesitated another minute, the voice had nothing more for
him, and he went slowly up to bed. As he undressed, his thoughts down
there with her, he wondered how her voice could have sounded so gay.

In the middle of the night, Tira woke suddenly, with the sense of
something near. There was the moon flooding the little room, and in the
doorway stood a figure.

"That you, Isr'el?" she called clearly.

"Yes," he said, and then hesitated, "you all right?"

"Yes," she answered, in the same clear voice, with something commanding
in it now. "We're all right. You go back to bed, so's to git your sleep.
I'll call you if I'm up first."

Tenney turned away, and she heard his hesitating step through the
kitchen and on the stairs. Then, as if this had been as commonplace an
interlude in her night as the baby's waking and drowsing off again, she
felt herself surging happily away to sleep.

XII

Raven, tired to lethargy by the morning's turmoil, stayed in the house
until after dinner. He sat by the library fire, a book on his knee,
chiefly to convince Charlotte, who would inevitably detect his drop in
responsive liveliness, that he was merely absorbed and not moping. Once
or twice she did appear at the door, plainly to look at him, but,
finding he kept his eyes on the page, she did not speak. The life had
gone out of him. He wondered at himself for being so fagged. Yet it had
been a good deal of a strain, that anguish of a creature he was not
allowed to help; it was exacting a heavy penalty. He found his mind
dwelling on it, look by look, word by word, and finding no relief except
in the thought of Tenney in the river pasture, chopping. If that ca