Herman's lips drew back over his teeth.
"You knew it, eh? And you did not tell me?"
"It wasn't my funeral," said Rudolph coolly. "If you wanted to believe
she bought it herself?"
"If she bought it herself!" Rudolph's shoulder was caught in an iron
grip. "You will tell me what you mean."
"Well, I ask you, do you think she'd spend that much on a watch?
Anyhow, the installment story doesn't go. That place doesn't sell on
installments."
"Who is there would buy her such a watch?" Herman's voice was thick.
"How about Graham Spencer? She's been pretty thick with him."
"How you mean--thick?"
Rudolph shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't mean anything. But he's taken her out in his car. And the
Spencers think there's nothing can't be bought with money."
Herman put down the dish-cloth and commenced to draw down his shirt
sleeves.
"Where you going?" Rudolph demanded uneasily.
"I go to the Spencers!"
"Listen!" Rudolph said, excitedly. "Don't you do it; not yet. You got
to get him first. We don't know anything; we don't even know he gave her
that watch. We've got to find her, don't you see? And then, we've got to
learn if he's going there--wherever she is."
"I shall bring her back," Herman said, stubbornly. "I shall bring her
back, and I shall kill her."
"And get strung up yourself! Now listen?" he argued. "You leave this to
me. I'll find her. I've got a friend, a city detective, and he'll help
me, see? We'll get her back, all right. Only you've got to keep your
hands off her. It's the Spencers that have got to pay."
Herman went back to the sink, slowly.
"That is right. It is the Spencers," he muttered.
Rudolph went out. Late in the evening he came back, with the news that
the search was on. And, knowing Herman's pride, he assured him that the
hill need never learn of Anna's flight, and if any inquiries came he
advised him to say the girl was sick.
In Rudolph's twisted mind it was not so much Anna's delinquency that
enraged him. The hill had its own ideas of morality. But he was fiercely
jealous, with that class-jealousy which was the fundamental actuating
motive of his life. He never for a moment doubted that she had gone to
Graham.
And, sitting by the fire in the little house, old Herman's untidy head
shrunk on his shoulders, Rudolph almost forgot Anna in plotting to use
this new pawn across the hearth from him in his game of destruction.