The lighted window was that of Portia Crumb. Portia had not gone to bed. But she was not sitting up on their account; she supposed that they had found shelter at one of several small houses that were scattered along the river road in the direction which they had taken. She was sitting up in order to minister to her "Dave." David Crumb's fits of drunkenness generally lasted through two days. When he came to himself, his first demand was for coffee, and his wife, who never could resist secretly sympathizing a little with the relief which her surly husband was able to obtain for a time from the grief which gnawed incessantly at her own poor heart--his wife always remained within call to give him whatever he needed. And, oddly enough, these vigils had become almost precious to Portia. For occasionally at these moments David of his own accord would talk of his lost boys--the only times he ever mentioned them or permitted his wife to do so. And now and then he would allow her to read her Bible to him, and even to sing a hymn perhaps, to which he would contribute in snatches a growling repentant bass. Portia's coffee-pot now stood on the hot coals of her kitchen fireplace; she had been occupying the time in spinning, and in chanting softly to herself, as the rain poured down outside: [Illustration: musical notation: Je -_ru_ -sa-lem, my hap-py _home_, Name ev-er de-ar tu _me_, When _shell_ my la-ber-rs hev an end? Thy joys when shell I see ? Thy-y joys when _shell-el_ I see?] Then, hearing some one at the outer door, she had come to open it. "Good Lors! Miss Dolly! Here!--lemme help you! Bring her right into the kitchen, an' put her down on the mat clost to the fire till I get her wet close off!" CHAPTER XXIV HORACE CHASE, having by hard work arranged his far-stretching affairs so that he could leave them, reached L'Hommedieu late in the evening of the day of Ruth's flight. He had not telegraphed that he was coming; his plan was to have his wife well on her way to New York and the Liverpool steamer almost before she knew it. She had always been fond of the unexpected; this fondness would perhaps serve him now. When he reached the old house, to which his money had given a new freshness, there was no one to meet him but Dolly's Diana. Diana, in her moderate, unexcited way, began to tell him what had happened. But she was soon re-enforced by Felicite, whose ideas (regarding the same events) were far more theoretic. "Miss Franklin had a lunch prepared, and took it with her," Diana went on. "Eet ended in a peekneek," interrupted Felicite. "The leaf was so red, and the time so beautiful, monsieur; no clouds, and the sky of a blue! Then suddenlee the rain ees come. No doubt they have entered in a house to wait till morning." "Which road did my wife take?" inquired Chase, his tone anxious. "Ah, monsieur, no one _see_ herr, she go so early. Eet was herr joke--to escape a leetle from herr sistare, if eet is permit to say eet; pardon."