en, taking his head out of his hands and sitting up. "His
gun?"

"He says," Charlotte continued, her voice shaking, "Tira's run away. I
told him the last I see o' Tira was yesterday afternoon standin' in her
own door, an' he asked if she had her things on an' I didn't know what
to say. An' he said somebody down the road said you went by 'fore light,
drivin' like blazes. An' you had a woman in the car. An' Tira'd run
away."

Raven was looking up at her, a little smile on his lips, but in his eyes
such strange things that Charlotte caught his head to her and held it
against her breast.

"Yes," he said, "yes, Charlotte, Tira has run away. She went yesterday,
over to Mountain Brook. She tried to cross the stepping stones. She's
over at the Donnyhills' now. She's going to stay there till she's
buried. I'll go and tell him. Where do you think he is?"

Charlotte still held his head against her warm heart.

"You don't s'pose," she whispered, "you don't believe she done _that_?"

"What?" he answered, and then her meaning came to him as his first hint
of what Tira might have done. He drew himself away from the kind hand
and sat up straight. "No," he said sharply. "It was an accident. She
never meant"--it had come upon him that this was what she had meant and
what she had done. But it must not be told of her, even to Nan. "Where's
Tenney?" he said. "Where do you think he is?"

Charlotte hesitated.

"He's up there," she said, after a moment while Raven waited, "up to the
hut. He said he's goin' to git his gun out o' there if he had to break
an' enter. He said he see it through the winder not two days ago. An'
Jerry hollered after him if he laid hand to your property he'd have the
law on him. Jerry was follerin' on after him, but you went by in the car
an' I called on him to stop. O Johnnie, don't you go up there, or you
let Jerry an' me go with you. If ever a man was crazed, that man's
Isr'el Tenney, an' if you go up there an' stir him up!"

"Nonsense!" said Raven, in his old kind tone toward her, and Charlotte
gave a little sob of relief at hearing it again. "I've got to see him
and tell him what I've told you. You and Jerry stay where you are.
Tenney's not dangerous. Except to her," he added bitterly to himself, as
he left the house. "And a child in its cradle. My God! he was dangerous
to her!" And Charlotte, watching from the window, saw him go striding
across the road and up the hill.

Raven, halfway up, began to he