The rain was already falling and the wind rising--it was the haunted wind; the bell sounded in the distance sharply. Jan-an paused in the gathering darkness and spoke tremblingly:
"What's a-going on?" she asked. Peneluna turned and laid her hand on the girl's shoulder; her face softened--but Jan-an could not see that.
"Child"--the old voice fell to a whisper--"I ain't going to expect too much of yer--God Almighty made yer out of a skimpy pattern, I know, but what He did give yer can be helped along by using it for them yer love. Child, watch there!"
A long crooked forefinger pointed to the shack, the windows of which were already darkened--for Larry had drawn the shades!
"Watch early and late there! Keep your mouth shut, except to me. Jan-an, I can trust yer?"
"Yes'm," she blurted suddenly and then fell to weeping. "I keep feelin' things like wings a-touching of me," she muttered. "I hate the feelin'. When nothing ain't happened ever, what's the reason it has ter begin now?"
It was nearly midnight when Peneluna sat down by her fireside to think. She had cooked a meal for Larry and carried it to him; she had soothed and fed Jan-an and put her to bed on a cot near the bed upon which old Philander Sniff had once rested, and now Peneluna, with Sniff's old Bible on her knees, felt safe to think and read, and it seemed as if the wings Jan-an had sensed were touching her! The book was marked at passages that had appealed to the old man. Often, after Mary-Clare had read to him and left, thinking that she had made no impression, the trembling, gnarled hand had pencilled the words to be reread in lonely moments.
Peneluna had never read the Bible from choice; indeed, her education had been so limited as to be negligible, but lately these pencilled marks had become tremendously significant to her. She was able, somehow, to follow Philander Sniff closely, catching sight of him, now and again, in an illumined way guided by the Bible verses. It was like the blind leading the blind, to be sure, and often it seemed a blind trail, but occasionally Peneluna could pause and take a long breath while she beheld the vision that must have helped her friend upon his isolated way.
To-night, however, she was tired and puzzled and worried. She kept reverting to Larry: her eyes only lighted on the printed words before her; her thoughts drifted.