"Don't blame her," Rance said in a low voice. He made no attempt to defend himself.

In her excitement Evelyn did not notice the sinister significance of his words and what they implied. She was conscious of nothing only that Fred had insulted her by his actions, and her wrath grew as terrible as her husband's.

She caught him by the shoulder and compelled him to look at her.

"Fred," she cried, "do you believe--do you dare to believe this terrible thing?"

She shook him in her rage and excitement.

Rance Belmont saw that Fred would be convinced of her innocence if he did not gain his attention, and the devil in him spoke again, soft, misleading, lying words, part truth, yet all false, leaving no chance for denial.

"Don't blame her--the fault has all been mine," he interposed again.

In her blind rage again Evelyn missed the significance of his words.

She was conscious of one thought only--Fred had not immediately craved her pardon. She shook and trembled with uncontrollable rage.

"I hate you, Fred!" she cried, her voice sounding thin and unnatural.

"I hate you! One minute ago I believed you to be the n.o.blest man on earth; now I know you for an evil-minded, suspicious, contemptible, dog!--a dog!--a cur! My father was right about you. I renounce you forever!"

She pulled the rings from her finger and flung them against the window, cracking the gla.s.s across. "I will never look on your face again, I hope. This is my reward, is it, for giving up everything for you? I boasted of your trust in me a minute ago, but you have shamed me; you have dragged my honor in the dust, but now I am free--and you may believe what you please!"

She turned to Rance Belmont.

"Will you drive me to Brandon to-night?" she asked.

She put on her coat and hat without a word or a look at the man, who stood as if rooted to the ground.

Then opening the door she went out quickly, and Rance Belmont, with something like triumph on his black face, quickly followed her, and Fred Brydon, bruised in body and stricken in soul, was left alone in his desolate house.

CHAPTER X.

_DA'S TURN_.

The wind was whistling down the Black Creek Valley, carrying heavy flakes of snow that whirled and eddied around them, as Rance Belmont and Evelyn made their way to the Stopping-House. The stormy night accorded well with the turmoil in Evelyn's brain. One point she had decided--she would go back to her father, and for this purpose she asked her companion if he would lend her one hundred dollars. This he gladly consented to do.

He was discreet enough to know that he must proceed with caution, though he felt that in getting her separated from her husband and so thoroughly angry with him that he had made great progress. Now he believed that if he could get her away from the Stopping-House his magnetic influence over her would bring her entirely under his power.

But she had insisted on going in to the Stopping-House to see Mrs.

Corbett and tell her what she was going to do. It was contrary to Evelyn's straightforwardness to do anything in an under-handed way, and she felt that she owed it to Mrs.

Corbett, who had been her staunch friend, to tell her the truth of the story, knowing that many versions of it would be told.

Mrs. Corbett was busy setting a new batch of bread, and looked up with an exclamation of surprise when they walked into the kitchen, white with snow. It staggered Mrs. Corbett somewhat to see them together at that late hour, but she showed no surprise as she made Mrs. Brydon welcome.

"I am going away, Mrs. Corbett," Evelyn began at once.

"No bad news from home, is there?" Mrs. Corbett asked anxiously.

"No bad news from home, but bad news here. Fred and I have quarrelled and parted forever!"

Mrs. Corbett drew Evelyn into the pantry and closed the door. She could do nothing, she felt, with Rance Belmont present.

"Did you quarrel about him?" she asked, jerking her head towards the door.

Evelyn told her story, omitting only Rance Belmont's significant remarks, which indeed she had not heard.

Mrs. Corbett listened attentively until she was done.

"Ain't that just like a man, poor, blunderin' things they are. Sure and it was just his love for you, honey, that made him break out so jealous!"

"Love!" Evelyn broke in scornfully. "Love should include trust and respect--I don't want love without them. How dare he think that I would do anything that I shouldn't? Do I look like a woman who would go wrong?"

"Sure you don't, honey!" Mrs. Corbett soothed her, "but you know Rance Belmont is so smooth-tongued and has such a way with him that all men hate him, and the women like him too well. But what are you goin' to do, dear? Sure you can't leave your man."

"I have left him," said Evelyn. "I am going to Brandon now to-night in time for the early train. Rance Belmont will drive me."

Something warned Mrs. Corbett not to say all that was in her heart, so she temporized.

"Sure, if I were you I wouldn't go off at night--it don't look well.

Stay here till mornin'. The daylight's the best time to go. Don't go off at night as if you were doin' something you were ashamed of. Go in broad daylight."

"What do I care what people say about me?" Evelyn raged again. "They can't say any worse than my husband believes of me. No--I am going--I want to put distance between us; I just came in to say good-bye and to tell you how it happened. I wanted you and Mr. Corbett to know the truth, for you have been kind friends to me, and I'll never, never forget you."

"I'd be afraid you'd never get to Brandon tonight, honey." Mrs. Corbett held her close, determining in her own mind that she would lock her in the pantry if there was no other way of detaining her. "Listen to the wind--sure it's layin' in for a blizzard. I knew that all day. The roads will be drifted so high you'd never get there, even with the big pacer. Stay here tonight just to oblige me, and you can go on in the morning if it's fit."

Meanwhile John Corbett had been warning Rance Belmont that the weather was unfit for anyone to be abroad, and the fact that George Sims, the horse trader from Millford, and Dan Lonsbury, had put in for the night, made a splendid argument in favor of his doing the same. Rance Belmont had no desire to face a blizzard unnecessarily, particularly at night, and the storm was growing thicker every minute. So after consulting with Evelyn, who had yielded to Mrs. Corbett's many entreaties, he agreed to remain where he was for the night. Evelyn went at once to the small room over the kitchen, which Mrs. Corbett kept for special guests, and as she busied herself about the kitchen Mrs. Corbett could hear her pacing up and down in her excitement.

Mrs. Corbett hastily baked biscuits and "b.u.t.termilk bread" to feed her large family, who, according to the state of the weather and the subsequent state of the roads, might be with her for several days, and while her hands were busy, her brain was busier still, and being a praying woman, Maggie Corbett was looking for help in the direction from which help comes.

The roaring of the storm as it swept past the house, incessantly mourning in the mud chimney and sifting the snow against the frosted windows, brought comfort to her anxious heart, for it reminded her that dominion and majesty and power belong to the G.o.d whom she served.

When she put the two pans of biscuits in the oven she looked through the open door into the "Room," where her unusual number of guests were lounging about variously engaged.

Rance Belmont smoked cigarettes constantly and shuffled the cards as if to read his fate therein. He would dearly have loved a game with some one, for he had the soul of a gambler, but Mrs. Corbett's decree against card-playing was well known.

Dan Lonsbury, close beside the table lamp, read a week-old copy of the Brandon _Times_. George Sims, the horse-dealer, by the light of his own lantern, close beside him on the bench, pared his corns with minute attention to detail.

Under the wall lamp, which was fastened to the window frame, Da Corbett, in his cretonne-covered barrel-chair of home manufacture, read the _War Cry_, while Peter Rockett, on his favorite seat, the wood-box, played one of the Army tunes on his long-suffering Jew's-harp.

"They can't get away as long as the storm lasts, anyway," Mrs. Corbett was thinking, thankful even for this temporary respite, "but they'll go in the mornin' if the storm goes down, and I can't stop them--vain is the help of man."

Suddenly Mrs. Corbett started as if she had heard a strange and disturbing noise; she threw out her hands as if in protest. She sat still a few moments holding fast to the kitchen table in her excitement; her eyes glittered, and her breath came short and fast.

She went hurriedly into the pantry, fearful that her agitation might be noticed. In her honest soul it seemed to her that her plan, so terrible, so daring, so wicked, must be sounding now in everybody's ears.