"
Judy struggled blindly to her feet, and still he did not touch her. In
spite of his quiet words there was a taste of bitterness on his lips,
as though his magnanimity had turned to wormwood while he was speaking.
After all, he told himself in a swift revulsion of feeling, Judy was his
wife and she had made him ridiculous.
"I know it's hard on you," she said, pausing on the threshold in the
vain hope, he could see, that some word would be uttered which would
explain things or at least make them bearable. None was spoken, and her
foot was on the single step that led to the path, when there came the
sound of a horse running wildly up the road through the cornlands,
and the next instant the young roan passed them, dragging Mr. Mullen's
shattered rig in the direction of the turnpike.
"Let me get there, Judy," said Abel, pushing her out of his way,
"something has happened!"
But his words came too late. At sight of the empty gig, she uttered a
single despairing shriek, and started at a run down the bank, and over
the mill-stream. Midway of the log, she stumbled shrieked again, and
fell heavily to the stream below, from which Abel caught her up as if
she were a child, and carried her to the opposite side, and across the
rocky road to the house.
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