"Yes, we are great friends--I like him--and he trusted me. What's
the matter now?" He was quick to understand that Josiah was in some
danger. Naturally enough he remembered the man's talk and his one
fear--recapture.

"George Grey has recognised Josiah as a runaway slave of a Mr.
Woodburn--" She was most unwilling to say plainly, "Go and warn him."

He started up. "And they mean to take him back?"

She was silent. The indecisions of the habitually decisive are hard to
deal with. The lad was puzzled by her failure to say more.

"It is dreadful, Aunt Ann. I think I ought to go and tell
Josiah--now--to-night."

She made no comment except to say, "Arrest is not possible on Sunday--and
he is safe until Monday or Tuesday."

John Penhallow looked at her for a moment surprised that she did not say
go, or else forbid him to go; it was unlike her. He had no desire to wait
for Sunday and was filled with anxiety. "I think I must go now--now," he
said.

"Then I shall go to bed," she said, and kissing him went away slowly step
by step up the stairs.

Staircases are apt to suggest reflections, and there are various ways of
rendering the French phrase "_esprit de l'escalier_." Aware that want of
moral courage had made her uncertain what to do, or like the Indian,
having two hearts, Ann had been unable to accept bravely the counsel of
either. The loyal decisiveness of a lad of only sixteen years had settled
the matter and relieved her of any need to personally warn Josiah. Some
other influences aided to make her feel satisfied that there should be a
warning. She was resentful because George Grey had put her in a position
where she had been embarrassed by intense sectional sense of duty and by
kindly personal regard for a man who not being criminal was to be
deprived of all the safeguards against injustice provided by the common
law. There were other and minor causes which helped to content her with
what she well knew she had done to disappoint Mr. Woodburn of his prey.
George Grey was really a bore of capacity to wreck the social patience of
the most courteous. The rector fled from him, John always had lessons and
how would James endure his vacuous talk. It all helped her to be
comfortably angry, and there too was that horrible spittoon.

The young fellow who went with needless haste out of the house and down
the avenue about eleven o'clock had no indecisions. Josiah trusted him,
and he felt the compliment this implied.