There were cries,
shouts, curses, flying stones; then he had dragged Lydia inside and
bolted the heavy door between them and the ugly clamor without.
She faced him where he stood, breathing hard, his back against the
barred door.
"They were saying--" she whispered, her face still and white. "My
God! What do they think I've done?"
"They're drunk," he explained. "It was only a miserable rabble from
the barroom in the village. But if you'd been here alone--!"
She shook her head.
"I recognized the man who spoke first; his name is Parsons. There
were others, too, who worked on the place here in the summer.... They
have heard?"
He nodded, unable to speak because of something which rose in his
throat choking him. Then he saw a thin trickle of red oozing from
under the fair hair above her temple, and the blood hammered in his
ears.
"You are hurt!" he said thickly. "The devils struck you!"
"It's nothing--a stone, perhaps."
Something in the sorrowful look she gave him broke down the flimsy
barrier between them.
"Lydia--Lydia!" he cried, holding out his arms.
She clung to him like a child. They stood so for a moment, listening
to the sounds from without. There were still occasional shouts and
the altercation of loud, angry voices; but this was momently growing
fainter; presently it died away altogether.
She stirred in his arms and he stooped to look into her face.
"I--Father will be frightened," she murmured, drawing away from him
with a quick decided movement.
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