Silence fell upon them both once more, and this time it persisted. By and by Jeff rose from his chair, passed behind hers and touched her shoulder roughly with his heavy hand. “I wouldn’t worry too much,” he said cheerfully. “I wouldn’t worry too much if I was you.” She looked up at him and smiled through sudden tears. “You’re good to me,” she told him. “You run along to bed,” Jeff bade her. “Just forget your bothers and run along to bed.” But when she had gone upstairs the man remained for a long time in his chair beside the warm lamp, thinking over what she had told him, supplying for himself the things she had not told. Jeff had a shrewd common sense; he was able to fill in many of the gaps, to see the truths to which even Lucia was blind. And as he thought, his eyes clouded with slow anger and his brows drew somewhat together; and when he got up at last to turn toward his bedroom there was a ferocity in his expression that no one had ever seen on Jeff Ranney’s face in all his fifty-seven years. He spoke slowly, half aloud, addressing no one at all. “Damn the man,” he muttered. “I’d like to bust him a good one. It’d do him good.” Upon this wish, which had a solemnity about it almost like a prayer, Jeff went to bed. V Next morning, when Andy Wattles drove by the farm with Will Bissell’s truck on his way to East Harbor, Jeff saw that Andy had a passenger. Will Belter was riding to town with Andy. They hailed him as they passed the barn, and Andy waved a hand in greeting as they disappeared. Jeff’s perceptions were quick; it was no more than half a dozen seconds before he understood that there was menace in this move on Belter’s part. His first thought was to stop the man and bring him back, but the truck was already far away along the townward road. He shook his head; there was nothing he could do. If Belter meant harm the harm was done. But the incident put Jeff on his guard, so that he made it his business to stay about the house that day; and when, in the early afternoon, an automobile stopped in the road before the farm he saw it and was ready. He had given the woman no warning, but she heard the machine, and came to his side in the dining room and looked out through the window. Themselves hidden, they could see the car. Three men were in it--the chauffeur, Will Belter and another. Jeff knew this other man; it needed not the woman’s exclamation to inform him. Her husband had found her hiding place. When Lucia saw him she sank weakly in a chair beside the table, said in a voice like a moan, “He’s found me! He’s found me!” But for this crisis of his adventure Jeff was ready; he rose to meet the moment, gripped her shoulder. “Just mind this,” he told her swiftly. “Keep your head, ma’am, and mind what I say. You don’t have to go back with him unless you want. He can’t make you, ha’n’t no legal way to make you; and if you don’t want to go you don’t have to go. I’ll see he don’t take you unless you say the word.”