With a supreme effort he pulled himself together and embraced the girl.
"Josie," he said earnestly, "I--I"m going to try to be a good husband to you.... And that," he concluded, _sotto voce_, "wasn"t in the agreement!"
She held him to her pa.s.sionately. "Dearest, I"m so glad!"
"It makes me very happy to know you are, Josie," he murmured miserably.
And to himself, while still she trembled in his embrace: "What a cur you are!... But I won"t renege now; I"ll play my hand out on the square, with her...."
Upon this tableau there came a sudden intrusion. The back door opened and Graham came in, Kellogg at his heels. It was the voice of the latter that told the two they were discovered: a hearty "h.e.l.lo! What"s this?" that rang in Nat"s ears like the trump of doom.
In a flash the girl disengaged herself, and they were a yard apart by the time that Graham, blundering in his surprise, managed to turn on the lights at the switchboard. But even in the full glare of them he seemed unable to credit his sight.
"Why, Nat!" he quavered, coming out toward the guilty pair. "Why, Nat...!"
Duncan took a long breath and Josie"s hand at one and the same time.
"Mr. Graham," he said coolly, "I"m glad you"re the first to know it.
Josie has just ask--agreed to be my wife."
Old Sam recovered sufficiently to take the girl"s hand and pat it. "I"m mighty glad, my dear," he told her. "I congratulate you both with all my heart."
"And so will I, when I have the right," Kellogg added, smiling.
"Oh, I forgot." Nat hastened to remedy his oversight. "Josie, this is my dearest friend, Mr. Kellogg; Harry, this is Miss Lockwood."
Josie gave Kellogg her hand. "I--I," she giggled--"I"m pleased to meet you, I"m sure."
"I"m charmed. I"ve heard a great deal of you, Miss Lockwood, from Nat"s letters, and I shall hope to know you much better before long."
"It"s awful" nice of you to say so, Mr. Kellogg."
"And, Nat, old man!" Kellogg threw an arm round Duncan"s shoulder. "I congratulate you! You"re a lucky dog!"
"I"m a dog, all right," said Nat glumly.
"But we mustn"t disturb these young people, Mr. Kellogg," Graham broke in nervously.
"They"ll--they"ll have a lot to say to one another, I"m sure; so we"ll just run along. I"m taking Mr. Kellogg up to the house, Nat. You"ll follow us as soon as you can, won"t you?"
"Yes--sure."
"I"ve got some news for you, too, that"ll make you happy."
"Never mind about that; it"ll keep till supper, Mr. Graham." Kellogg laughed, taking the old man"s arm. "Good-bye, both of you--good-bye for a little while."
"Good-bye..."
"Wasn"t that terrible!" Josie turned back to Nat when they were alone.
"I think it was real mean of Mr. Graham to turn on all the lights that way," she simpered. "Somebody else might"ve seen."
"Yes," agreed the young man, half distracted; "but of course I daren"t turn them off again."
"Never mind. We can wait." Josie blushed.
"I"ll just sit here and wait--we can talk till Tracey comes, and then you can walk home with me."
"Yes, that"ll be nice," he agreed, but without absolute ecstasy.
Fortunately for him, in his temper of that moment, Pete Willing reeled into the shop, two-thirds drunk, with his face smeared with blood from a cut on his forehead.
""Scuse me," he muttered huskily. "Kin I see you a minute, Doc?"
He reeled and almost fell--would have fallen had not Duncan caught his arm and guided him to a chair. "Great Scott, Pete!" he cried. "What"s happened to you?"
"M" wife..." Pete explained thickly.
XX
ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND
"Perhaps I"d better go." Josie, fluttering with alarm and a little pale, went quickly to the door.
Duncan followed her a pace or two. "I can"t leave just now," he stammered.
"I don"t mind one bit. I don"t want to be in the way. I"ll telephone from home.... Good-night, dearest!" On tiptoes she drew his face down to hers and kissed him. "I"m so happy..."
Half dazed, Nat stared after her until her lightly moving figure merged with the shadows beneath the trees and was lost. Then, with a sigh, he turned back to Pete.
The sheriff had undoubtedly suffered at the hands of that militant person, Mrs. Willing. "Great Scott!" Duncan exclaimed as he examined the two-inch gash in his head. "That"s a bird, Pete."
"M" wife done it," Willing muttered huskily. "Sh" threw side "r th"
house at me, I think."
"Wife, eh?" The coincidence smote Duncan with redoubled force. He shivered "Well, she certainly gave it to you good." He went behind the counter to prepare a dressing for the wound, which, if wide, was neither deep nor serious and gave him little concern for Pete.
The latter ruminated on the event, breathing stertorously, while Duncan was fixing up a wash of peroxide. "She"ll kill me some day," he announced suddenly, with intense conviction in his tone.
"Oh, don"t say that...."
Opposition roused Pete to a fury of a.s.sertion. "Yes, she will, sure!"
he bawled. Then his emotion quieted. "But I"d "bout as soon be dead"s live with her, anyway."
"_Um_." Nat got some absorbent cotton and adhesive plaster. "Been drinking again, hadn"t you?"
"Yesh," Pete admitted with a leer of drunken cunning. "But she druv me to it." He was quiet for a moment. "Mish"r Duncan," he volunteered cheerfully, "you ain"t got _no_ idee how lucky y"are y"aint married."