"Well,--I have, then," returned the visitor half angrily. She searched in a small bag she carried hung on her arm and brought out something. "I've said my last word, then," she repeated. "But--I brung you this." "This" proved to be a late rose marked by frost, its crimson petals smitten almost to black at their edges. Callista knew where it had grown, she recalled the day that she and her bridegroom had planted it. The root came from Father Cleaverage's place; Lance had brought it to her; and he had helped her well, and watered the little bush afterward. Rilly cast the blossom toward her with a gesture half despair, half reproach. It lodged in her clasped hands a moment, and she looked down at it there. Memory of that October day, the tossing wind that blew her hair in her eyes, the familiar little details of the dooryard, Lance with his mattock and spade, the laughter and simple speech, the bits of foolish jest and words of tenderness--these took her by the throat and made her dumb. She knew that now the cabin which fronted that dooryard was desolate. She could not refuse to see Lance's solitary figure moving from house to [320] fence to greet these two. Somehow she guessed that it was he who had plucked the rose and given it to the girl--that would be like Lance. The blossom slipped from her fingers and dropped to the floor. Young Ajax, cruising about seeking loot, discovered it with a crow of rapture, seized upon it and began, baby fashion, to pull it to pieces. The three watched with fascinated eyes as the fat little fingers rent away crimson petal after petal, till all the floor was strewn with their half withered brightness. "Well," said Rilly, discouraged, getting to her feet, "I reckon you an' me may as well be goin', Buck." [321] CHAPTER XXIII. BUCK FUSON'S IDEA. DOWN in Hepzibah, Flenton Hands and Derf had rented a store building close under the shadow of the Court House. Furtive grins were exchanged among those who knew; since it was expected that, the Derf store on Little Turkey Track Mountain being a depot for wildcat whiskey, the Derf Hands store in the Settlement would be a station along the line of that underground railway always necessary for the distribution of the illicit product. At last Flenton Hands seemed about to give some shape to that cloud of detraction which, with certain of his neighbors, had always hung over his name. As the separation between Lance Cleaverage and his wife continued, and appeared likely to be permanent; as Hands felt himself in so far justified in his hopes concerning Callista, his terror of the man whose word was out against him increased and became fairly morbid. This it was which drove him to Hepzibah, where the strong arm of the law could reach, where there were such things as peace warrants, and where fortunately, just at present, Lott Beason, the newly elected sheriff, was his distant cousin and [322] an old business partner, who still owed him money.