"If he"s the member of the family that I think he is," said Kincaid dryly, "it"s almost unsportsmanlike for him to go after Symes; it"s like a crack pigeon shot shooting a bird sitting."
"And he said," Essie went on, ""Don"t waste your energy in quarrelling with your enemies, concentrate--make money out of them.""
"Did Van Lennop say that?"
She nodded.
"They"ll pay tribute, then. Van Lennop will put this project through in his own good time; but let me prophesy they"ll be pitching horse-shoes in the main street of Crowheart first."
The sound of a commotion on the stairs reached them.
"What"s broken loose in this man"s town now?"
As though in direct answer to Kincaid"s question Mrs. Terriberry lunged down the corridor looking like a hippopotamus in red foulard.
"If anything more happens"--Mrs. Terriberry"s voice rose shrill and positive--"I shall _die_!"
A lunge in his direction indicated that her demise might take place in Kincaid"s arms, but a startled side-step saved him and she sank heavily upon the red plush sofa. Her teeth chattered with a touch of nervous chill and her skin looked mottled.
"She choked her! choked her almost to death! She"d a done it in a minute more only the hired girl broke her holt!"
"Who? What do you mean, Mrs. Terriberry?"
"Dr. Harpe! She choked Gussie Symes because Gussie wouldn"t leave her home and go away with her! Did you ever hear such a thing!" She went on in disconnected gasps: "Crazy! Jealous! I don"t know what--n.o.body does--and she"s disappeared--they can"t find her." Mrs. Terriberry"s shudders made the sofa creak. "And her active in church work, which they say her langwudge was awful!"
But Essie Tisdale was listening to another step upon the stair and she trembled when she heard the steps hastening down the corridor.
Van Lennop saw only her as he came toward her with outstretched hands, speaking her name with the yearning tenderness with which he had spoken it to himself a hundred times--
"Essie--Essie Tisdale!"
He kissed her, and she yielded, as though there were no need for words between them.
"But my letter? My telegram? Why didn"t you answer?"
Her eyes widened with astonishment.
"Your letter! Your telegram!"
"You didn"t get them?"
"Not one."
"Who did then?"
She shook her head.
"No one knew you"d gone but Dr. Harpe."
"Dr. Harpe!"
"You wrote her!"
"I wrote Dr. Harpe?" He stared at her for one incredulous second. "I wrote Dr. Harpe! She said so?"
"She said you left a letter for her."
There leaped into his steel-gray eyes a look which reminded Kincaid of the play of a jagged flash of lightning. He spoke slowly and enunciated very carefully when he said--
"I knew Dr. Harpe had the instincts of a prying servant, but I scarcely thought she"d go as far as that."
"Essie," Kincaid tapped her on the shoulder, "don"t forget that your old Uncle d.i.c.k is here and waiting to be noticed."
He laughed aloud at her confusion and said as he and Van Lennop shook each other"s hand--
"Just as I think I"m fixed for life, by George! I"m shoved out in the cold again; for I am forced to believe"--his eyes twinkled as he looked at Van Lennop--"that I am not the only Homeseeker left in Crowheart."