The Able McLaughlins
wouldn't heed him. He ought never to have said so hateful a thing to her. As if she could want to go back to that—He remembered how she had sat sobbing on the doorstep when he first went to her. He was glad to think of Peter Keith dying there, lonely, shrunken, filthy. He looked again after his wife. She went steadily eastward, running towards the town. But he had the baby. She would be coming back after a while!
He drove on, raging against her, trying to justify himself. He went so far that he could scarcely see her now. He might have gone on home, if there had not appeared on the horizon a team, coming towards him. Its approach was intolerable. Somebody who might know them was coming nearer. Somebody would see Wully McLaughlin riding westward, and presently overtake his wife running east! He turned around abruptly.
Facing east, he could just see her. He would quickly overtake her, and order her to get in and come home with him at once. He would never let her go to that livery stable full of drunks alone. He was getting near her.
Then a strange thing happened. He saw her stop and suddenly turn around, and come half running towards him as fast as she had run away. He kept his face hard, unrelenting. He saw when she came near that she was crying softly. She climbed quickly up when he stopped.
"I doubt he's not dying," she wept. "I can't do it! He's too strong, Wully! He's tricky!"
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