Then she passed on, but short as it was the pause had been very significant, for it seemed that whatever the elders of the community might decide, the two women, whose influence was supreme at Silverdale, had given the impostor absolution.
The girl could not analyze her feelings, but through them all a vague relief was uppermost, for whatever he had been it was evident the man had done one wrong only, and daringly, and that was a good deal easier to forgive than several incidents in Courthorne's past would have been.
Then she was conscious that Miss Barrington's eyes were upon her.
"Aunt," she said, with a little tremor in her voice, "It is almost bewildering.

Still, one seemed to feel that what that man has done could never have been the work of Lance Courthorne." Miss Barrington made no answer, but her face was very grave, and just then those nearest it drew back a little from the door.

A trooper stood outside it, his carbine glinting in the light, and another was silhouetted against the sky, sitting motionless in his saddle further back on the prairie.
"The police are still here," said somebody.

One by one they passed out under the trooper's gaze, but there was the usual delay in harnessing and saddling, and the first vehicle had scarcely rolled away, when again the beat of hoofs and thin jingle of steel came portentously out of the silence.

Maud Barrington shivered a little as she heard it.
In the meanwhile, the few who remained had seated themselves about Colonel Barrington.