The women sat staring into space.

The children, in round-eyed dismay, gazed from one to the other of their elders.
"Wal, they're comin' back," declared Isbel, in immense relief.

"An' so help me--Jorth let them bury their daid!" The fact seemed to have been monstrously strange to Gaston Isbel.

When the women entered the old man said, brokenly: "I'm shore glad....

An' I reckon I was wrong to oppose you ...