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They sought for her in every conceivable place, returning often to Easton's house to see if she had come home, but they found no trace of her, nor met anyone who had seen her, which was, perhaps, because the dreary, rain-washed streets were deserted by all except those whose business compelled them to be out.
He had been to see Didlum, who said he didn't want to be hard on them, and that he would keep the things together for three months, and if Easton had paid up arrears by that time he could have them back again, but there was, in Easton's opinion, very little chance of that. Owen listened with contempt and anger.
Easton did not return until after midnight, and all through the intervening hours, Ruth, weak and tired, but unable to sleep, was lying in bed with the child by her side. Her wide-open eyes appeared unnaturally large and brilliant, in contrast with the almost death-like paleness of her face, and there was a look of fear in them, as she waited and listened for the sound of Easton's footsteps.
The pinnacle is stilt on the apex of the steeple waiting for a sufficiently strong wind to blow it down on somebody's head. When the other men heard of Easton's 'narrow shave', most of them said that it would have served him bloody well right if he had fallen and broken his neck: he should have refused to go up at all without a proper scaffold. That was what THEY would have done.
'Mr Easton came with Freddie to see Mrs Easton, and she's gone home again with them, replied Freddie, 'and she's given the baby to us for a Christmas box! Barrington was already familiar with the fact of Easton's separation from his wife, and Owen now told him the Story of their reconciliation. Barrington took his leave shortly afterwards.
Easton's face by this time had taken on the waxen shade that comes with death, and he appeared to be looking through a haze. His senses were leaving him. I saw something must be done at once, and I shouted to him: "Run! run! Easton, run!" Articulation was difficult, and I did not know my own voice. It seemed very strange and far away to me.
Before Mr. Easton's tavern Joe Handy, the fiddler, was reeling off a few bars of "Hey, Betty Martin" to the familiar crowd of loungers under the big poplar. "It's Davy Ritchie!" shouted Joe, breaking off in the middle of the tune; "welcome home, Davy. Ye're jest in time for the barbecue on the island." "And Cap Wendell! Howdy, Cap!" drawled another, a huge, long-haired, sallow, dirty fellow.
It appeared that, unable to bear the reproach that Easton's presence seemed to imply, or to endure the burden of her secret any longer, and always haunted by the thought of the lake in the park, Ruth had formed the dreadful resolution of taking her own life and the child's.
Slyme was about to leave the place where he was at present lodging, and he told Easton that although he had almost decided on another place he would take a look at the room. At Easton's suggestion they arranged that Slyme was to accompany him home that night.
This was Easton's twenty-second birthday and it occurred to me that it would be a pleasant variation to give a birthday dinner in his honor and to have a sort of feast to relieve the monotony of our daily life, and give the men something to think about and revive their spirits; for "bucking the trail" day after day with no change but the gradual change of scenery does grow monotonous to most men, and the ardor of the best of them, especially men unaccustomed to roughing it, will become damped in time unless some variety, no matter how slight, can be brought into their lives.
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