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He said he would come back at noon to learn whether anything new had occurred in the matter of the lawsuit, and whether it would be necessary for Ralph to go to Wilkesbarre. He was really much concerned about the boy. Ralph's conduct since the evening before had been a mystery to him.
Besides, it seemed to him that Goodlaw must know all about Ralph's life with him, and he dared not go far astray in his answers. But the lawyer knew only what Craft himself was disclosing. He based each question on the answers that had preceded it, long practice having enabled him to estimate closely what was lying in the mind of the witness.
Since the terrible intelligence had reached her of what had happened on the pass she had remained in this state of insensibility, being stricken into such torpidity by the shock of the occurrence. Willy's tears fell fast as he stood by the bed, and his anguish was subdued thereby to a quieter mood. Ralph's sufferings were not so easily fathomable.
And so he was dragged into the lists by Ralph, and experienced the luck of champions. For cricket, and for diving, Ralph bore away the belt: Richard's middle-stump tottered before his ball, and he could seldom pick up more than three eggs underwater to Ralph's half-dozen. He was beaten, too, in jumping and running. Why will silly mortals strive to the painful pinnacles of championship?
This is a new phase of Ralph's character which Mabel regards with something like surprise; but her energies are all prostrated for the time, and in these vague surmises there is not shock enough to arouse them into life again.
Her eyes were looking straight before her now, and a depth of tender wistfulness in them went to Ralph's heart. He was beginning to hate the branch. "My father," he said, "is often stern to others, but he has never been stern to me always helpful, full of tenderness and kindness. Perhaps that is because I lost my mother almost before I can remember."
And a kind Providence, supplemented on Ralph's side by some activity and observation, brought him also to the glen of the elders that June morning. Yet there are those who say that there is nothing in coincidence. When Winsome, moving thoughtfully onward, gently waving a slip of willow in her hand, came in sight of Ralph, she stood and waited.
From what he remembered of Beatrice and the impression that she had made on him in those few fierce minutes in Ralph's house he began to see that she would probably be able to hold her own; and if only Margaret would take to her, the elder girl might be of great service in establishing the younger. It was an odd and rather piquant idea, and gradually took hold of his imagination.
But Ralph's embarrassment increased. He hurriedly said something about having been very busy. "Well," went on the Captain, intent on making the explanation as plausible as possible, "we've missed you consider'ble. We was sayin' we hoped you wouldn't give us up altogether. Ain't that so, Elsie?" Miss Preston's foot tapped the sidewalk several times, but she answered, though not effusively: "Mr.
Dolly added in a postscript that her dearly beloved Ralph had been very good to her, and left her well provided for. Of course, we might have had the body exhumed, but we were poor, and Ralph's widow was rich; and in America, you know, everything goes in favour of the dollars. Hence we were obliged to let the matter drop, sincerely trusting Dolly would never take it into her head to visit us.
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