CHAPTER XII

WATCHING

There was absolute quiet in the home of the cobbler for over a week.
The house hung heavy with gloom. Jinnie Grandoken was fighting a
ghastlier monster than even old Matty had created for her amusement.

Of course Jinnie didn't realize this, but two patient watchers knew,
and so did a little black dog. To say that Lafe suffered, as Peggy
repeated over and over to him the story of Jinnie's loving act, would
be words of small import, and through the night hours, when the
cobbler relieved his wife at the sick girl's bed, shapes black and
forbidding rose before him, menacing the child he'd vowed to protect.

Could it be that Maudlin Bates had anything to do with Jinnie's fall?
Even so, he was powerless to shield her from the young wood gatherer.
A more perplexing problem had never faced his paternal soul. After his
little son had gone away, there had been no child to love until--and
now as he looked at Jinnie, agony surged through him with the memory
of that other agony--for she might go to little Lafe.

There came again the stabbing pain born with Peg's tale of the dance.
The white rose lay withered in the cobbler's bosom where it had been
since his girl had been carried to what the doctor said would in all
probability be her deathbed. It was on nights like this that dead
memories, with solemn mien, raced from their graves, haunting the
lame man. Even Lafe's wonderful portion of faith had diminished during
the past few days. He found himself praying mighty prayers that Jinnie
would be spared, yet in mental bitterness visualizing her death. Oh,
to keep yet a while within the confines of his life the child he
loved!

"Let 'er stay, Lord dear, let my Rose o' Paradise stay," Lafe cried
out into the shadowy night, time and time again.

Peggy came, as she often did, to wheel him away and order him to bed,
but this evening Lafe told Peg he'd rather stay with Jinnie.

"She looks like death," he whispered unnerved.

"She is almost dead," replied the woman grimly.

The doctor entered with silent tread. Stealing to the bed, he put his
hand on the girl's brow.

"She's better," he whispered, smilingly. "Look! Damp! Nothing could be
a surer sign!"

"May the good God be praised!" moaned Lafe.

Jinnie stirred, lifted her heavy lids, and surveyed the room vacantly.
Her glance passed over the medical man as if he were not within the
range of her vision. She gazed at Lafe only, with but a faint