“Oh, I don’t know, mother!” Harriet slowly ascended the stairs to her room, and Mrs. Floyd sat down in the darkening parlor to devise some scheme; she finally concluded that Harriet was too much in love to manage her own affairs, and that she would take them in hand.

“He loves her, that’s certain,” she mused, “and he is a man who can be managed if he is worked just right.”  She had evidently arrived at an idea as to what should be done in the emergency, for she put on her cloak and hat and went up to Harriet’s room.  The girl sat near the bed, her head bent over to a pillow.

“Daughter,” Mrs. Floyd said, laying her hand on Harriet’s head, “you stay here, and don’t come down-stairs to-night for all you do.  I’m not going to have people see you looking like that.  It will set ’em to talking, after you’ve been to ride with Mr. Westerfelt.  Stay here; I’ll have Hettie fetch you something to eat.”

Harriet did not look up or reply, and Mrs. Floyd descended to the street.

Chapter XXIII

Westerfelt was in the yard back of the stable.  He had just started home when he saw a muffled figure enter the front door, and heard Mrs. Floyd asking Washburn if he were in.

“Here I am,” he called out; and he approached her as she waited at the door.

“I want to see you a minute, Mr. Westerfelt,” she said.  “Can you walk back a piece with me?”

“Yes,” he replied.  “I’m going up to Bradley’s to supper.”

Outside it was dark; only the lights from the fire in the store and the big lamp on a post in front of the hotel pierced the gloom.  A few yards from the stable she turned and faced him.

“Do you intend to kill my child?” she asked, harshly.

“What do you mean?” he answered.

“I mean that you will literally kill her—­that’s exactly what I mean.  You’ve treated her worse than a brute.  What did you do to her this evening?  Tell me; I want to know.  I have never seen her act so before.”

He stopped, leaned against a fence, and stared at her.

“I’ve done nothing; I—­”

“I know better.  She fell in a dead faint as soon as she got to her room.  I undressed her an’ put ’er to bed; but something is wrong.  She is out of her head, but she keeps moaning about you, and saying you are going away.  Are you?”

“I thought of it, but I won’t.  I’ll stay if—­if you think I ought.  I’ll do anything, Mrs. Floyd—­anything you wish.”

“Well, don’t go off.  She’ll not live a week if you do.  Spare her—­she is all I have left on earth.  Think, think how she has suffered.  She has not been well since the night she fainted in the blacksmith’s shop an’ lay so long on the cold ground—­that was all for your sake, too.”

“I know that, Mrs. Floyd,” he said.  “I’ll stay.  Tell her that—­tell her I’m coming to see her.  Can I see her to-night?”