"Oh, I know a lot more I could tell you some time. I ain't--I ain't been home at all. I'm just looking round. Ain't no one can stop me. There was some sort of--of funer'l, wasn't there, in town today? Me and my father, we can lick ary two men in Jackson County." He would have made some sort of rude approach once more. But now even the tardy chivalry of these men of Spring Valley came back to them. Two or three stepped in between him and Aurora Lane. "Here, you," said the voice of one, "that'll do! Quit it now." Aurora Lane did not have time to thank her rescuers. The painful situation was relieved suddenly. Just as they were turning at the corner of the public square there hurried up a man, an oldish man, untidy even in his Sunday garb, half running toward the group which now he saw approaching. "Hello, Pa," exclaimed the half-wit, and laughed long and loud. "I didn't come home," said he. "I'm--I'm out!" The sad face of Ephraim Adamson was seen by all, as he pushed in among them and took his son by the arm. They walked away briskly now together, Johnnie looking back over his shoulder. But now, to the surprise of all--to her own surprise as well, so sudden was her resolve--Aurora Lane hurried after these two. "Mr. Adamson," said she, "wait, don't whip him--I'm not angry--I understand." Adamson halted for just a moment. "He's been away all day," said he, his face showing no resentment of her presence. "I didn't know they let him out last night--he didn't come home. I began looking for him as soon as I knew he was out--I thought he might be hiding in the fields--he does sometimes. He always runs away whenever he gets a chance. I'm sorry if he's done wrong--has he been bad to you?" "I understand everything," said Aurora Lane. Many heard her say that. "Don't mind. Tomorrow, will you both be in town?--I might talk to you." "No, Ma'am," said Adamson briefly. "He can't come any more. I may be here. What do you want of me--after what I've said--after what I've done to you? And here you come and bring him back to me." His own face showed whitish blue in the flicker of the great arc light. "Ma'am," he went on again, "there's a lot about you--you're some woman after all. Where have you been--at church?" "Yes," said Aurora Lane, "I was at church." "I ain't been there in years," said Eph Adamson sadly. "Neither have I," rejoined Aurora Lane, "twenty years, I think--perhaps more." He gazed at her now out of his old, bleared, sad eyes. "I wouldn't of been here now but for what's happened," said he. "Already I was sad--and I was drunk before I was. And I was--well, I felt like I was a rebel, that was all, yesterday. That boy of yours looked so fine, I couldn't stand it. Look at mine! I done wrong, Ma'am. I said what I had no right to say. I'm sorry, clean through--with all my heart I'm sorry for what I done yesterday."