At her aunt’s request, she told everything,—why she went and what she did, and showed her wounded hand, and said there was a cut on Paul’s forehead, which had scraped against the same sharp iron point. Miss Hansford’s knees shook so that she could hardly stand. Nor could she think of any fitting words with which to express her feelings except “Lord of Heavens!” which came to her the more readily because she had used it so recently. “There, I’m swearing again, but it’s enough to make a minister swear,—the things I’m goin’ through. I wonder I’m alive. I know where they’ll put him, but he’ll be found, if they haven’t got him already, and then it’ll be worse for him.” She didn’t reproach Elithe for what she had done, nor feel like reproaching her. On the contrary, she felt an increased admiration for the girl who had braved so many difficulties to save Paul. Elithe seemed to be more like a woman to be counseled with and considered than a girl to be advised and dictated to. And Elithe felt ten years older than she had when the great trouble came. Together she and her aunt talked the matter over and waited for news from the Ralston House. Max Allen had gone there after his interview with Miss Hansford to notify Tom, he said, although he had his own suspicions with regard to that young man. He found him grooming a horse near the stable and so busy with his work that he did not seem to see Max until he was close to him and said, “Good mornin’! Heard the news?” “Yes. Two trees and a barn struck with lightnin’ last night, if that’s what you mean,” Tom answered, without looking up. “Oh, git out! ’Tain’t that. You know ’tain’t,” Max rejoined. “Paul Ralston’s broke jail, and they’ll be scourin’ the country for him. You hain’t seen him, I s’pose?” Tom meant to be truthful in the main, but, thinking this a time to lie, he did so without a scruple. “No, I hain’t, and if I had I’d die before I’d tell. How did he get out?” Max repeated the story, while Tom groomed the horse assiduously, asking a question now and then but not hoodwinking Max. That Tom knew something about it he was sure, and finished by saying: “Whoever did it was all-fired plucky, and I respect ’em for it. Folks suspect Miss Ralston; the finger tips on the window and the footprints under it was so small. I hope she’s well as usual this mornin’ and will have her wits about her when they come to search. You are sure he ain’t here?” “Yes, sure,” Tom answered, giving the horse a blow which made him spring round with his heels close to Max, who began to back off and very soon left the yard with the remark, “You’d better warn ’em that they are comin’.”