And that Roberta should not want him to know.
And at once, born for the most part of religion, convention and a general rural suspicion of all urban life and the mystery and involuteness of its ungodly ways, there sprang into his mind the thought of a city seducer and betrayer — some youth of means, probably, whom Roberta had met since going to Lycurgus and who had been able to seduce her by a promise of marriage which he was not willing to fulfil.
And forthwith there flared up in his mind a terrible and quite uncontrollable desire for revenge upon any one who could plot so horrible a crime as this against his daughter.
The scoundrel!
The raper!
The murderer!
Here he and his wife had been thinking that Roberta was quietly and earnestly and happily pursuing her hard, honest way in Lycurgus in order to help them and herself.
And from Thursday afternoon until Friday her body had lain beneath the waters of that lake.
And they asleep in their comfortable beds, or walking about, totally unaware of her dread state.
And now her body in a strange room or morgue somewhere, unseen and unattended by any of all those who loved her so — and to-morrow to be removed by cold, indifferent public officials to Bridgeburg.
“If there is a God,” he exclaimed excitedly, “He will not let such a scoundrel as this go unpunished!
Oh, no, He will not!
‘I have yet to see,’” he suddenly quoted, “‘the children of the righteous forsaken or their seed begging for bread.’” At the same time, a quivering compulsion for action dominating him, he added: “I must talk to my wife about this right away.
Oh, yes, I must.
No, no, you wait here.
I must tell her first, and alone.
I’ll be back.
I’ll be back.
You just wait here.
I know it will kill her.
But she must know about this.
Maybe she can tell us who this is and then we can catch him before he manages to get too far away.
But, oh, my poor girl!
My poor, dear Roberta!
My good, kind, faithful daughter!”
And so, talking in a maundering manner, his eyes and face betraying an only half-sane misery, he turned, the shambling, automaton-like motions of his angular figure now directing him to a lean-to, where, as he knew, Mrs. Alden was preparing some extra dishes for the next day, which was Sunday.
But once there he paused in the doorway without the courage to approach further, a man expressing in himself all the pathos of helpless humanity in the face of the relentless and inexplicable and indifferent forces of Life!
Mrs. Alden turned, and at the sight of his strained expression, dropped her own hands lifelessly, the message of his eyes as instantly putting to flight the simple, weary and yet peaceful contemplation in her own.
“Titus! For goodness’ sake!
Whatever IS the matter?”
Lifted hands, half-open mouth, an eerie, eccentric and uncalculated tensing and then widening of the eyelids, and then the word:
“Roberta!”
“What about her?
What about her?
Titus — what about her?”
Silence.
More of those nervous twitchings of the mouth eyes, hands.
Then . . .
“Dead!
She’s been — been drowned!” followed by his complete collapse on a bench that stood just inside the door.
And Mrs. Alden, staring for a moment, at first not quite comprehending, then fully realizing, sinking heavily and without a word to the floor.
And Titus, looking at her and nodding his head as if to say:
“Quite right.
So should it be.
Momentary escape for her from the contemplation of this horrible fact.”
And then slowly rising, going to her and kneeling beside her, straightening her out.
Then as slowly going out to the door and around to the front of the house where Orville Mason was seated on the broken front steps, contemplating speculatively along with the afternoon sun in the west the misery that this lorn and incompetent farmer was conveying to his wife.
And wishing for the moment that it might be otherwise — that no such case, however profitable to himself, had arisen.
But now, at sight of Titus Alden, he jumped up and preceded the skeleton-like figure into the lean-to.
And finding Mrs. Alden, as small as her daughter nearly, and limp and still, he gathered her into his strong arms and carried her through the dining-room into the living-room, where stood an antiquated lounge, on which he laid her.