"Please wait a minute, Mr. Elliot," she called. "I'll walk right
along under your umbrella, if you don't mind."
Wesley Elliot bowed and crossed the street. "Certainly," he said.
"I don't know why I didn't bring my own umbrella this morning," said
Miss Daggett with a keen glance at Elliot. "That old man stopped in
the library awhile ago, and he rather frightened me. He looked very
odd and talked so queer. Did he come to the parsonage?"
"Yes," said Wesley Elliot. "He came to the parsonage?"
"Did he tell you who he was?"
He had expected this question. But how should he answer it?
"He told me he had been ill for a long time," said the minister
evasively.
"Ill!" repeated Miss Daggett shrilly. Then she said one word:
"Insane."
"People who are insane are not likely to mention it," said Elliot.
"Then he is insane," said Miss Daggett with conviction.
Wesley looked at her meditatively. Would the truth, the whole truth,
openly proclaimed, be advisable at this juncture, he wondered. Lydia
could not hope to keep her secret long. And there was danger in her
attempt. He shuddered as he remembered the man's terrible words,
"Twice I have been tempted to knock her down when she stood between
me and the door." Would it not be better to abandon this pretense
sooner, rather than later? If the village knew the truth, would not
the people show at least a semblance of kindness to the man who had
expiated so bitterly the wrong he had done them?
"If the man is insane," Miss Daggett said, "it doesn't seem right to
me to have him at large.
Pages:
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228