At noon Philip Horton made his way through the crowd with a tray and a
tin coffee-pot from the camp kitchen. When he reached the carriage
he found Mrs. Alexander just as he had left her in the early morning,
leaning forward a little, with her hand on the lowered window, looking
at the river. Hour after hour she had been watching the water, the
lonely, useless stone towers, and the convulsed mass of iron wreckage
over which the angry river continually spat up its yellow foam.
"Those poor women out there, do they blame him very much?" she asked, as
she handed the coffee-cup back to Horton.
"Nobody blames him, Mrs. Alexander. If any one is to blame, I'm afraid
it's I. I should have stopped work before he came. He said so as soon as
I met him. I tried to get him here a day earlier, but my telegram missed
him, somehow. He didn't have time really to explain to me. If he'd got
here Monday, he'd have had all the men off at once. But, you see, Mrs.
Alexander, such a thing never happened before. According to all human
calculations, it simply couldn't happen."
Horton leaned wearily against the front wheel of the cab. He had not had
his clothes off for thirty hours, and the stimulus of violent excitement
was beginning to wear off.
"Don't be afraid to tell me the worst, Mr. Horton. Don't leave me to the
dread of finding out things that people may be saying. If he is blamed,
if he needs any one to speak for him,"--for the first time her voice
broke and a flush of life, tearful, painful, and confused, swept over
her rigid pallor,--"if he needs any one, tell me, show me what to do."
She began to sob, and Horton hurried away.
When he came back at four o'clock in the afternoon he was carrying his
hat in his hand, and Winifred knew as soon as she saw him that they had
found Bartley. She opened the carriage door before he reached her and
stepped to the ground.
Horton put out his hand as if to hold her back and spoke pleadingly:
"Won't you drive up to my house, Mrs. Alexander? They will take him up
there."
"Take me to him now, please. I shall not make any trouble."
The group of men down under the riverbank fell back when they saw a
woman coming, and one of them threw a tarpaulin over the stretcher. They
took off their hats and caps as Winifred approached, and although she
had pulled her veil down over her face they did not look up at her. She
was taller than Horton, and some of the men thought she was the tallest
woman they had ever seen. "As tall as himself," some one whispered.
Horton motioned to the men, and six of them lifted the stretcher
and began to carry it up the embankment. Winifred followed them the
half-mile to Horton's house. She walked quietly, without once breaking
or stumbling. When the bearers put the stretcher down in Horton's spare
bedroom, she thanked them and gave her hand to each in turn. The men
went out of the house and through the yard with their caps in their
hands. They were too much confused to say anything as they went down the
hill.