"If I hear nothing from her here, I want to go to make sure she got home all right."
"Everything is changed now. I am on your side and hers."
"I hear you say it," Charley said sullenly.
Evan's sense of justice forced him to admit that Charley was justified. "Well, will you do this?" he said. "When you've got the old man off your hands, go to her place yourself, and then come to me and tell me if she's all right."
"I'll do it if she wants me to," Charley said.
"Here's your flashlight," said Evan. "I'll keep the gun a little while, in case Corinna calls for my help."
Charley pocketed the light in silence and led the old man forth from under the tree. Simeon Deaves that night was like a pet dog on a leader, passed impatiently from hand to hand.
Evan, fancying that the thick branches hindered him from hearing, crept out and lay down on the grass. The woods were not so thick in this place. This had evidently been part of the grounds surrounding the old house in its palmy days, and the spruce was a relic of those times. He heard an automobile approach in the highway, and stop at the end of the woods track. This would be the man returning from having telephoned. All sounds of the search through the woods had ceased. Evidently they had decided that the better way was to watch all outlets.
No sound from any quarter betrayed the whereabouts of Corinna and the old negress. They were swallowed up as completely as if they had taken to their burrows like rabbits. Evan's heart was with her, wherever she was. He had not the same anxious solicitude for her that one would have for an ordinary woman hunted in the dark woods, for he was well assured that Corinna was not a prey to imaginary terrors. She would be no less at home in the woods at night than he was. Still no sound came from her. He was not at all sure that she would summon him if hard pressed, but they could not take her without his hearing it.
In the end the greying sky in the East bade him consider his own retreat if he wished to avoid capture. He had committed no crime, of course, but he was very sensible of the awkwardness of trying to explain his own share in the night's doings, should he be taken. He had good hopes that Corinna had escaped by now. He started to make his way westward.