“Where is Mr. Westerfelt?” she asked.

He raised his eyes to the window in the attic.  “Up thar lyin’ down.  He’s not in bed.  He jest threw hisself down without undressing.”

“Is he asleep?”

“I don’t know, Miss Harriet, but I think not.”

“Did they hurt him last night, Mr. Washburn?”

“Why, no, Miss Harriet, not a single bit.”

She caught her breath in relief.  “I thought maybe they had, and that he was not going to acknowledge it.  Are—­are you sure?”

“As sure as I could be of anything, Miss Harriet; I believe he is a truthful man, an’ he told me they didn’t lay the weight of a finger on ‘im.  You kin go up an’ ax ’im.  He ain’t asleep; he looked too worried to sleep when he got back.  He walked the floor the balance o’ the night.  Seems to me he’s been through with enough to lay out six common men.”

Harriet did not answer.  She turned into the office and went up the stairs to Westerfelt’s room.  Round her was a dark, partially floored space containing hay, fodder, boxes of shelled corn, piles of corn in the husk, and bales of cotton-seed meal.  She rapped on the door-facing, and, as she received no response, she called out: 

“Mr. Westerfelt, come out a minute.”

She heard him rise from his bed, and in a moment he stood in the doorway.

“Oh, it’s you!” he cried, in a glad voice.  “I was afraid you were not well.  I—­”

“I am all right,” she assured him.  “But I simply couldn’t rest till I saw you with my own eyes.  When I heard they let you off I was afraid it was a false report.  Sometimes, when those men do a bad thing they try to cover it up.  Oh, Mr. Westerfelt, I am so—­so miserable!”

He caught her hands and tried to draw her into his room out of the draught which came up the stairs, but she would not go farther than the door.

“No, I must hurry back home” she said.  “Mother did not want me to come anyway; she didn’t think it looked right, but I was so—­so worried.”

“I understand.”  He was feasting his eyes on hers; it was as if their hunger could never be appeased.  “Oh, I’m so glad you come I’ve had you on my mind—­”

But she interrupted him suddenly.  Looking round at the bleak room and its scant furniture, she said:  “I—­I thought may be I could persuade you now to come back to your room at the hotel, where mother and I could wait on you.  You do not look as well as you did, Mr. Westerfelt.”

He smiled and shook his head.

“It’s mighty good of you to ask me,” he returned, “but this is good enough for me, and I don’t want to be such a bother.  The Lord knows I was enough trouble when I was there.”

A look of sharp pain came upon her sensitive face for an instant, then she said; “I wish you wouldn’t talk that way; you weren’t one bit of trouble.”