"Has Romanzo heard direct from him to-day?" asked Emlie.

"No; the office replied he was out of the city for Sat.u.r.day and Sunday; didn't give his address but asked if we could keep the men quiet till the middle of next week when the funds would be forwarded."

"I wired our New York exchange yesterday," said Emlie, "but they can't give us any information--answered things had gone to pot pretty generally with certain securities, but Flamsted was all right,--not tied up in any of them. Of course, they know the standing of the syndicate.

There'll have to be some new arrangement for a large reserve fund right here on home soil, or we'll be kept in hot water half the time. I don't believe in having the hands that work in one place, and the purse that holds their pay in another; it gets too ticklish at such times when the market drops and a plank or two at the bottom falls out."

"Neither do I;" Mr. Wiggins spoke emphatically. "The Quarries Company's liabilities run up into the millions on account of the contracts they have signed and the work they have undertaken, and there ought to be a million of available a.s.sets to discount panics like this one that looks pretty threatening to us away off here in Maine. Our bank ought to have the benefit of some of the money."

"Well, so far, we've had our trouble for nothing, you might say. You, as a director, know that Champney sends up a hundred thousand say on Thursday, and Romanzo draws it for the pay roll and other disburs.e.m.e.nts on Sat.u.r.day morning; they hold it at the other end to get the use of it till the last gun is fired." He spoke with irritation.

"It looks to me as if some sort of a gun had been fired already," said Mr. Wiggins, pointing to the increasing crowd before the hall.

"Something's up," said Emlie, startled at the sight of the gathering hundreds.

"Then there's my place," said the Colonel--the other two thought they heard him sigh--and started up the street.

Emlie turned to Mr. Wiggins.

"It's rough on the Colonel; he's a man of peace if ever there was one, and likes to stand well with one and all. This rough and tumble business of sheriff goes against the grain; his time is up next month; he'll be glad enough to be out of it. I'll step over to the office for the paper, I see they've just come--the men have got them already from the stand--"

Elmer Wiggins caught his arm.

"Look!" he cried under his breath, pointing to the crowd and a man who was mounting the tail of an express wagon that had halted on the outskirts of the throng. "That's one of the quarrymen--he's ring-leader every time--he's going to read 'em something--hark!"

They could hear the man haranguing the ever-increasing crowd; he was waving a newspaper. They could not hear what he was saying, but in the pauses of his speechifying the hoa.r.s.e murmur of approval grew louder and louder. The cart-tail orator pointed to the headlines; there was a sudden deep silence, so deep that the soft scurrying of a ma.s.s of fallen elm leaves in the gutter seemed for a moment to fill all the air. Then the man began to read. They saw the Colonel on the outside of the crowd; saw him suddenly turn and make with all haste for the post-office; saw him reappear reading the paper.

The two hurried across the street to him.

"What's the matter?" Emlie demanded.

The Colonel spoke no word. He held the sheet out to them and with shaking forefinger pointed to the headlines:

BIG EMBEZZLEMENT BY FLAMSTED QUARRIES CO. OFFICIAL

GUILTY MAN A FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE

SEARCH WARRANTS OUT

DETECTIVES ON TRAIL

"New York--Special Despatch: L. Champney Googe, the treasurer of the Flamsted Quarries Co.--" etc., etc.

The men looked at one another. There was a moment of sickening silence; not so much as a leaf whirled in the gutter; it was broken by a great cheer from the a.s.sembled hundreds of workmen farther up the street, followed by a conglomerate of hootings, cat-calls, yells and falsetto hoorays from the fringe of small boys. The faces of the three men in front of the post-office grew white at their unspoken thought. Each waited for the other.

"His mother--" said Emlie at last.

Elmer Wiggins' lips trembled. "You must tell her, Colonel--she mustn't hear it this way--"

"My G.o.d, how can I!" The Colonel's voice broke, but only for a second, then he braced himself to his martyrdom. "You're right; she mustn't hear it from any one but me--telephone up at once, will you, Elmer, that I'm coming up to see her on an important matter?--Emlie, you'll drive me up in your trap--we can get there before the men have a chance to get home--keep a watch on the doings here in the town, Elmer, and telephone me if there's any trouble--there's Romanzo coming now, I suppose he's got word from the office--if you happen to see Father Honore, tell him where I am, he will help--"

He stepped into the trap that had been hitched in front of the drug store, and Emlie took the reins. Elmer Wiggins reached up his hand to the Colonel, who gripped it hard.

"Yes, Elmer," he said in answer to the other's mute question, "this is one of the days when a man, who is a man, may wish he'd never been born--"

They were off, past the surging crowds who were now thronging the entire street, past The Bow, and over the bridge on their way to The Gore.

XI

"Run on ahead, girlies," said Aileen to the twins who were with her for their annual checkerberry picnic, "I'll be down in a few minutes."

They were on the edge of the quarry woods which sheltered the Colonel's outlying sheep pastures and protected from the north wind the two sheepfolds that were used for the autumn and early spring. Dulcie and Doosie, obedient to Aileen's request, raced hand in hand across the short-turfed pastures, balancing their baskets of red berries.

The late afternoon sunshine of the last of October shone clear and warm upon the fading close-cropped herbage that covered the long slopes. The sheep were gathering by flocks at the folds. The collie, busy and important, was at work with 'Lias rounding up the stragglers. Aileen's eyes were blinded to the transient quiet beauty of this scene, for she was alive to but one point in the landscape--the red brick house with granite tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs far away across the Rothel, and the man leaving the carriage which had just stopped at the front porch. She could not distinguish who it was, and this fact fostered conjecture--Could it be Champney Googe who had come home to help settle the trouble in the sheds?

How she hated him!--yet her heart gave a sudden sick throb of expectation. How she hated herself for her weakness!

"You look tired to death, Aileen," was Mrs. Caukins' greeting a few minutes afterwards, "come in and rest yourself before supper. Luigi was here just now and I've sent Dulcie over with him to Aurora's to get the Colonel; I saw him go in there fifteen minutes ago, and he's no notion of time, not even meal-time, when he's talking business with her. I know it's business, because Mr. Emlie drove up with him; he's waiting for him to come out. Romanzo has just telephoned that he can't get home for supper, but he'll be up in time to see you home."

Mrs. Caukins was diplomatic; she looked upon herself as a committee of one on ways and means to further her son's interest so far as Aileen Armagh was concerned; but that young lady was always ready with a check to her mate.

"Thank you, Mrs. Caukins, but I'll not trouble him; Tave is coming up to drive me home about eight; he knows checkerberry picking isn't easy work."

Mrs. Caukins was looking out of the window and did not reply.

"I declare," she exclaimed, "if there isn't Octavius this very minute driving up in a rush to Aurora's too--and Father Honore's with him!--Why, what--"

Without waiting to finish her thought, she hurried to the door to call out to Dulcie, who was coming back over the bridge towards the house, running as fast as she could:

"What's the matter, Dulcie?"

"Oh, mother--mother--" the child panted, running up the road, "father wants you to come over to Mrs. Googe's right off, as quick as you can--he says not to stop for anything--"

The words were scarcely out of her mouth before Mrs. Caukins, without heeding Aileen, was hurrying down the road. The little girl, wholly out of breath, threw herself down exhausted on the gra.s.s before the door.

Aileen and Doosie ran out to her.

"What is it, Dulcie--can't you tell me?" said Aileen.

Between quickened breaths the child told what she knew.

"Luigi stopped to speak to Mr. Emlie--and Mr. Emlie said something dreadful for Flamsted--had happened--and Luigi looked all of a sudden so queer and pale,"--she sat up, and in the excitement and importance of imparting such news forgot her over-exertion,--"and Mr. Emlie said father was telling Mrs. Googe--and he was afraid it would kill her--and then father came to the door looking just like Luigi, all queer and pale, and Mr. Emlie says, 'How is she?' and father shook his head and said, 'It's her death blow,' then I squeezed Luigi's hand to make him look at me, and I asked him what it was Mrs. Googe's was sick of, for I must go and tell mother--and he looked at Mr. Emlie and he nodded and said, 'It's town talk already--it's in the papers.' And then Luigi told me that Mr. Champney Googe had been stealing, Aileen!--and if he got caught he'd have to go to prison--then father sent me over home for mother and told me to run, and I've run so--Oh, Aileen!"

It was a frightened cry, and her twin echoed it. While Aileen Armagh was listening with shortened breaths to the little girl, she felt as if she were experiencing the concentrated emotions of a lifetime; as a result, the revulsion of feeling was so powerful that it affected her physically; her young healthy nerves, capable at other times of almost any tension, suddenly played her false. The effect upon her of what she heard was a severe nervous shock. She had never fainted in her life, nor had she known the meaning of an hysterical mood; she neither fainted nor screamed now, but began to struggle horribly for breath, for the shocked heart began beating as it would, sending the blood in irregular spurts through the already over-charged arteries. From time to time she groaned heavily as her struggle continued.

The two children were terrified. Doosie raced distractedly across the pastures to get 'Lias, and Dulcie ran into the house for water. Her little hand was trembling as she held the gla.s.s to Aileen's white quivering lips that refused it.

By the time, however, that 'Lias got to the house, the crisis was past; she could smile at the frightened children, and a.s.sure 'Lias that she had had simply a short and acute attack of indigestion from eating too many checkerberries over in the woods.

"It serves me right," she said smiling into the woe-begone little faces so near to hers; "I've always heard they are the most indigestible things going--now don't you eat any more, girlies, or you'll have a spasm like mine. I'm all right, 'Lias; go back to your work, I'll just help myself to a cup of hot water from the tea-kettle and then I'll go home with Tave--I see him coming for me--I didn't expect him now."