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“You go an’ git him a mite o’ water,” whispered Dilly, when they had finished. “I would, but I dunno the ways o’ this place. It’ll taste good to him.”

Molly nodded, and hurried away; presently she came back, bearing a tin cup, and Elvin drank, though he did not thank her.

In the early afternoon, Ebenezer Tolman came striding down between the pens in ostentatious indignation. He was a tall, red-faced man, with a large, loose mouth, and blond-gray whiskers, always parted and blowing in the wind. He wore, with manifest pride, the reputation of being a dangerous animal when roused. He had bought a toy whip, at little Davie’s earnest solicitation, and, lashing it suggestively against his boot, he began speaking long before he reached the little group. The lagging crowd of listeners paused, breathless, to lose no word.

“Look here, you! don’t ye darken my doors ag’in, an’ don’t ye dast to open your head to one o’ my folks! We’re done with ye! Do you hear? We’re done with ye! Rosy’ll ride home with me to-night, an’ she’ll ride with you no more!”

Elvin said nothing, though his brow contracted suddenly at Rosa’s name. Ebenezer was about to speak again; but the little parson came striding swiftly up, his long coat flying behind him, and Tolman, who was a church-member, in good and regular standing, moved on. But the parson was routed, in his turn. Dilly rose, and, as some one afterwards said, “clipped it right up to him.”

“Don’t you come now, dear,” she advised him, in that persuasive voice of hers. “No, don’t you come now. He ain’t ready. You go away, an’ let him set an’ think it out.” And the parson, why he knew not, turned about, and went humbly back to his preaching in the hall.

The afternoon wore on, and it began to seem as if Elvin would never break from his trance, and never speak. Finally, after watching him a moment with her keen eyes, Dilly touched him lightly on the arm.

“The Tolmans have drove home,” she said, quietly. “All on ’em. What if you should git your horse, an’ take Molly an’ me along?”

Elvin came to his feet with a lurch. He straightened himself.

“I’ve got to talk to the parson,” said he.

“So I thought,” answered Dilly, with composure, “but ’tain’t no place here. You ask him to ride, an’ let Miss Dorcas drive home alone. We four’ll stop at my house, an’ then you can talk it over.”

Elvin obeyed, like a child tired of his own way. When they packed themselves into the wagon,–where Dilly insisted on sitting behind, to make room,–the Tiverton and Sudleigh people stood about in groups, to watch them. Hiram Cole came forward, just as Elvin took up the reins.

“Elvin,” said he, in a cautious whisper, with his accustomed gesture of scraping his cheek, “I’ve got suthin’ to say to ye. Don’t ye put no money into Dan Forbes’s hands. I’ve had a letter from brother ‘Lisha, out in Illinois, an’ he says that business Dan wrote to you about–well, there never was none! There ain’t a stick o’ furniture made there! An’ Dan’s been cuttin’ a dash lately with money he got som’er’s or other, an’ he’s gambled, an’ I dunno what all, an’ been took up. An’ now he’s in jail. So don’t you send him nothin’. I thought I’d speak.”

Elvin looked at him a moment, with a strange little smile dawning about his mouth.

“That’s all right,” he said, quickly, and drove away.

To Molly, the road home was like a dark passage full of formless fears. She did not even know what had befallen the dear being she loved best; but something dire and tragic had stricken him, and therefore her. The parson was acutely moved for the anguish he had not probed. Only Dilly remained cheerful. When they reached her gate, it was she who took the halter from Elvin’s hand, and tied the horse. Then she walked up the path, and flung open her front door.