THE STEADFAST HEART
yourself…. I won’t have people saying mean things about him—and throwing up that—that old thing…. I won’t…. I won’t!” She clutched the paper in her arms and rushed upstairs to her room.
“Well….” said Craig to himself, “if Lydia’s decided to be his champion, he’s in for stirring times. If there isn’t trouble, she’ll make it so she’ll have something to champion about.”
It was that evening that Angus made his first voluntary appearance on the streets. Hitherto he had concealed himself, dreading the public eye, and the manifestations likely to ensue of the public’s opinion of his home-coming. He had kept to the shop and to his little room, and the town had seen nothing of him, which whetted its curiosity the more. To-night, with spurious impassivity, he walked the entire length of Main Street on his way to visit Dave Wilkins…. He did not pass unobserved, and he was conscious of observation and of whisperings. If he seemed tranquil to the onlooker, it was due to the set phlegmatic expression which had become a part of him;… if, as in the old days, some urchin had set up the cry of “Murderer!” he would have taken to his heels in panic.
He turned in at Browning’s gate, his eyes upon the walk.
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