Ben had an answer—but it was so vague and obscure that he had not yet found words in which to express it.
Mrs. O’Dell did not try to weaken her son’s and brother’s belief in the fugitive’s innocence. But her knowledge of human nature was deeper than theirs both by instinct and experience. She did not judge Sherwood in her heart, however, or voice her thought that he was probably guilty. He had been guilty of lesser crimes, lesser madnesses. He had forgotten his traditions and turned his back on his old friends. He had followed his wild whims at the expense of his duty to life and in the knowledge of better things; and she suspected that such a course might, in time, lead even a gentleman to worse offenses than infringements of the game laws. But she knew that he loved his child and had loved the child’s mother. And so she felt nothing for him but pity.
In the short note which little Marion had brought from her father Sherwood stated his innocence of Balenger’s death far more emphatically than he wrote of his love for his daughter and her mother. And yet Flora O’Dell believed in his love for the little girl and the dead woman and was not at all sure of his innocence.
The deputy sheriff and the local constable returned to O’Dell’s Point within two days of their first visit. They confronted Ben and Uncle Jim as the two farmers descended to the barn floor from the top of a load of hay.
“Look a here, young feller, why didn’t you tell me all you knew about that pirogue?” demanded Mr. Brown in a nasty voice, with a nasty glint in his eyes. “You went an’ made yerself out the champion man of honor an’ truth teller in the world an’ then you went an’ lied to me!”
“You said somebody stole Sherwood’s pirogue.”
“Took it off our front, that’s what I said.”
“No use arguing. The pirogue was filled up with dry wood and set afire, and you know it! And you know who set her afire! Out with it—an’ save yerself from jail. I’m listening.”
“Old Tim Hood has been talking to you, I suppose.”
“Then you know as much about it as I do—and maybe more. Yes, and maybe more, if you know all he knows—for he’s the only person I can think of around here who’d have the cheek to take anything off our front and destroy it.”