Alexander? They will take him up
there."
"Take me to him now, please. I shall not make any trouble."
The group of men down under the riverbank fell back when they saw a
woman coming, and one of them threw a tarpaulin over the stretcher. They
took off their hats and caps as Winifred approached, and although she
had pulled her veil down over her face they did not look up at her. She
was taller than Horton, and some of the men thought she was the tallest
woman they had ever seen. "As tall as himself," some one whispered.
Horton motioned to the men, and six of them lifted the stretcher
and began to carry it up the embankment. Winifred followed them the
half-mile to Horton's house. She walked quietly, without once breaking
or stumbling. When the bearers put the stretcher down in Horton's spare
bedroom, she thanked them and gave her hand to each in turn. The men
went out of the house and through the yard with their caps in their
hands. They were too much confused to say anything as they went down the
hill.
Horton himself was almost as deeply perplexed. "Mamie," he said to his
wife, when he came out of the spare room half an hour later, "will you
take Mrs. Alexander the things she needs? She is going to do everything
herself. Just stay about where you can hear her and go in if she wants
you."
Everything happened as Alexander had foreseen in that moment of
prescience under the river. With her own hands she washed him clean of
every mark of disaster. All night he was alone with her in the still
house, his great head lying deep in the pillow.
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