“What’s the matter?” she demanded, her great eyes blazing, her face white as death.
“You are crazy!” said Vashti contemptuously.
“Let go of him,” said Vashti almost savagely. “How dare you! Lanty is as sober as I am. The idea of you daring to do this thing! They ought to be ashamed, Lanty!”
The detaining hands fell from him. He gave her one look of passionate gratitude, the one sole recompense Vashti Lansing ever received for the love which had ruined her whole life. The young men slunk away. Lanty felt a terrible reaction sweep across him, and fell atrembling with real physical weakness.
“Vashti,” he said, “go and ask Mabella to come to me. I said something ugly to her. I want her to forgive me.”
Vashti went with seeming readiness. Lanty rested white and trembling, alone, before the flaming ruin of his home. Presently Vashti came towards him slowly.
“Where’s Mabella?” he asked. “She’s all right, isn’t she?”
“Yes, but, Lanty, I’m very sorry, she won’t come.”
“Then she can stay,” said Lanty heart-brokenly. “If she has the heart to hold out now she can stay; can I come home with you, Vashti?”
“Yes, of course,” said Vashti. “I’ll call Sidney, and you go home with him. I’ll explain to everybody that you are all right. You had better go and not get them all asking questions.”
So she brought Sidney, and the two men went away together. As they turned their backs upon the scene there came a terrible crash. They turned and looked.
The roof-tree of Lanty’s home had fallen in. He resumed his way with tears brimming his eyes.
Vashti no sooner saw them depart than she hastened over to the group about Mabella. Temperance was holding her in her arms.
As Vashti approached, the group gave way a little.
“What did Lanty say?” she asked eagerly. “Is he ever going to forgive me?”
Vashti answered softly and with seeming hesitation, “Don’t take on too hard, Mabella, but he has gone home with Sidney.”
Mabella comprehended the words and sank, a dead weight, in Temperance’s arms.
Vashti went about in her quiet way, speaking to the oldest women, explaining, or was it only hinting? to them in confidence, how incensed Lanty was against Mabella, how angry Mabella was because of Lanty’s words, how Sidney had taken Lanty home to wrestle with him, and how Mabella and Dorothy were going home with Temperance.