She swayed a little nearer; her warm, soft body pressed against him, her bright young eyes still striving to draw him down to her lips.

"Oh, Joe, Joe," she murmured in a snuggling, contented way.

Sweat sprang upon his forehead and his throbbing temples, so calm and cool but a moment before. He stood trembling, his damp elf-locks dangling over his brow. Through the half-open door a little breath of wind threaded in and made the lamp-blaze jump; it rustled outside through the lilac-bushes like the pa.s.sing of a lady's gown.

Joe's voice was husky in his throat when he spoke.

"You'd better go to bed, Ollie," said he.

He still clung foolishly to her willing hand as he led her to the door opening to the stairs.

"No, you go on up first, Joe," she said. "I want to put the wood in the stove ready to light in the morning, and set a few little things out.

It'll give me a minute longer to sleep. You can trust me now, Joe," she protested, looking earnestly into his eyes, "for I'm not going away with Morgan now."

"I'm glad to hear you say that, Ollie," he told her, unfeigned pleasure in his voice.

"I want you to promise me you'll never tell Isom," said she.

"I never intended to tell him," he replied.

She withdrew her hand from his quickly, and quickly both of them fled to his shoulders.

"Stoop down," she coaxed with a seductive, tender pressure of her hands, "and tell me, Joe."

Isom's step fell on the porch. He crashed the door back against the wall as he came in, and Joe and Ollie fell apart in guilty haste. Isom stood for a moment on the threshold, amazement in his staring eyes and open mouth. Then a cloud of rage swept him, he lifted his huge, hairy fist above his head like a club.

"I'll kill you!" he threatened, covering the s.p.a.ce between him and Joe in two long strides.

Ollie shrank away, half stooping, from the expected blow, her hands raised in appealing defense. Joe put up his open hand as if to check Isom in his a.s.sault.

"Hold on, Isom; don't you hit me," he said.

Whatever Isom's intention had been, he contained himself. He stopped, facing Joe, who did not yield an inch.

"Hit you, you whelp!" said Isom, his lips flattened back from his teeth.

"I'll do more than hit you. You--" He turned on Ollie: "I saw you.

You've disgraced me! I'll break every bone in your body! I'll throw you to the hogs!"

"If you'll hold on a minute and listen to reason, Isom, you'll find there's nothing at all like you think there is," said Joe. "You're making a mistake that you may be sorry for."

"Mistake!" repeated Isom bitterly, as if his quick-rising rage had sunk again and left him suddenly weak. "Yes, the mistake I made was when I took you in to save you from the poorhouse and give you a home. I go away for a day and come back to find you two clamped in each other's arms so close together I couldn't shove a hand between you.

Mistake----"

"That's not so, Isom," Joe protested indignantly.

"Heaven and h.e.l.l, didn't I see you!" roared Isom. "There's law for you two if I want to take it on you, but what's the punishment of the law for what you've done on me? Law! No, by G.o.d! I'll make my own law for this case. I'll kill both of you if I'm spared to draw breath five minutes more!"

Isom lifted his long arm in witness of his terrible intention, and cast his glaring eyes about the room as if in search of a weapon to begin his work.

"I tell you, Isom, nothing wrong ever pa.s.sed between me and your wife,"

insisted Joe earnestly. "You're making a terrible mistake."

Ollie, shrinking against the wall, looked imploringly at Joe. He had promised never to tell Isom what he knew, but how was he to save himself now without betraying her? Was he man enough to face it out and bear the strain, rush upon old Isom and stop him in his mad intention, or would he weaken and tell all he knew, here at the very first test of his strength? She could not read his intention in his face, but his eyes were frowning under his gathered brows as he watched every move that old Isom made. He was leaning forward a little, his arms were raised, like a wrestler waiting for the clinch.

Isom's face was as gray as ashes that have lain through many a rain. He stood where he had stopped at Joe's warning, and now was pulling up his sleeves as if to begin his b.l.o.o.d.y work.

"You two conspired against me from the first," he charged, his voice trembling; "you conspired to eat me holler, and now you conspire to bring shame and disgrace to my gray hairs. I trust you and depend on you, and I come home----"

Isom's arraignment broke off suddenly.

He stood with arrested jaw, gazing intently at the table. Joe followed his eyes, but saw nothing on the table to hold a man's words and pa.s.sions suspended in that strange manner. Nothing was there but the lamp and Joe's old brown hat. That lay there, its innocent, battered crown presenting to Joe's eyes, its broad and pliant brim tilted up on the farther side as if resting on a fold of itself.

It came to Joe in an instant that Isom's anger had brought paralysis upon him. He started forward to a.s.sist him, Isom's name on his lips, when Isom leaped to the table with a smothered cry in his throat. He seemed to hover over the table a moment, leaning with his breast upon it, gathering some object to him and hugging it under his arm.

"Great G.o.d!" panted Isom in shocked voice, standing straight between them, his left arm pressed to his breast as if it covered a mortal wound. He twisted his neck and glared at Joe, but he did not disclose the thing that he had gathered from the table.

"Great G.o.d!" said he again, in the same shocked, panting voice.

"Isom," began Joe, advancing toward him.

Isom retreated quickly. He ran to the other end of the table where he stood, bending forward, hugging his secret to his breast as if he meant to defend it with the blood of his heart. He stretched out his free hand to keep Joe away.

"Stand off! Stand off!" he warned.

Again Isom swept his wild glance around the room. Near the door, on two p.r.o.ngs of wood nailed to the wall, hung the gun of which Joe had spoken to Morgan in his warning. It was a Kentucky rifle, long barreled, heavy, of two generations past. Isom used it for hawks, and it hung there loaded and capped from year's beginning to year's end. Isom seemed to realize when he saw it, for the first time in that season of insane rage, that it offered to his hand a weapon. He leaped toward it, reaching up his hand.

"_I'll kill you now!_" said he.

In one long spring Isom crossed from where he stood and seized the rifle by the muzzle.

"Stop him, stop him!" screamed Ollie, pressing her hands to her ears.

"Isom, Isom!" warned Joe, leaping after him.

Isom was wrenching at the gun to free the breech from the fork when Joe caught him by the shoulder and tried to drag him back.

"Look out--the hammer!" he cried.

But quicker than the strength of Joe's young arm, quicker than old Isom's wrath, was the fire in that corroded cap; quicker than the old man's hand, the powder in the nipple of the ancient gun.

Isom fell at the report, his left hand still clutching the secret thing to his bosom, his right clinging to the rifle-barrel. He lay on his back where he had crashed down, as straight as if stretched to a line. His staring eyes rolled, all white; his mouth stood open, as if in an unuttered cry.

CHAPTER VII

DELIVERANCE