there, doggedly stay, on the step, to
await what happened. She put her hand through his arm.

"Come," she said authoritatively, "let's walk up the road and drop in
again when they've all gone. It's no use staying now."

That, he saw, was wise, and they went out into the road, waited a moment
for the sleighs just starting, and then walked away from home. Some of
the people were singing "camp-meeting hymns," and there was one daring
burst of "Good night, ladies," and a chorused laugh. Prayer-meeting at
Tenney's was not, Raven concluded, regarded much more seriously than
Charlotte had foreseen. The bells jingled off into the distance. The
horses were bent on home. As if the sound only had torn up the night
into shreds of commotion, so now the bits of silence drew together into
a web and the web covered them. Nan, in spite of the perplexed question
of Tira, could have settled under the web, there with Raven, as under
wings. But he was hot with impatience. They had gone half a mile
perhaps, when he stopped.

"Come back," he said. "I've got to know."

Nan turned with him and they went on in silence but very fast. Once or
twice she was about asking him not to take such long steps, but she set
her teeth and swung forward. In front of Tenney's they stopped. The
rooms were lighted. The house was still. Raven drew a deep breath. What
he had expected he did not know, whether calls for help or Tenney's
voice of the woods shouting, "Hullo!" This, at any rate, was a reprieve.

"Come on," he said. "I'll take you home and then come back."

Again Nan stepped out in time. No use, she thought, to beg him to let
her come, too. But she could come back. Women were useful, she knew,
with their implied terrors and fragility, in holding up certain sorts of
horror. Nan was willing to fight, if need were, with all the weapons of
her sex. In the road in front of her own house, was Charlotte, waiting
for them. Nan left Raven, put a hand on Charlotte's arm, and called her
"Ducky."

"You won't come in?" she said to Raven. "Don't you think you'd better.
Half an hour or so?"

"Not a minute," said Raven. "Good night."

He left them and after a few striding steps was aware of Charlotte,
calling him. She came up and spoke his name.

"I've just met that woman."

"What woman?" he asked impatiently.

"Tira Tenney. With the baby. This time o' night."

"Where?"

"Front o' the house, just as I come out."

"Then she was coming there," he burst