"I'm awfully sorry about it."
"At least I promised not to tell till it was settled. Well—it is settled. So I've not broken the promise, really."
Stephen did not think it necessary—or perhaps easy—to pass judgment on this point.
"At any rate it's much better we should know, I think. I'm sure you'll find Tora able to help you now."
She was not thinking of Tora—nor of Dennehy's tirade, nor even of Mrs. Lenoir's reserve.
"Do you think Mr. Ledstone—guessed?"
Stephen smiled. "He took a very definite stand on the woman's side when you put your parable. I should say it's probable that he guessed."
Thus it befell that the secret leaked out, though the promise was kept; and Winnie found herself an object of sympathy and her destinies a matter of importance at Shaylor's Patch. It is perhaps enough to say that she would have been behaving distinctly well if, for the sake of a scrupulous interpretation of her promise, she had forgone these consolations. They were very real and precious. They negatived the doleful finality which she had set to her life as a woman. They transformed her case; instead of a failure, it became a problem. A little boldness of vision, a breath of the free air of Shaylor's Patch, a draught of the new wine of speculation—and behold the victim turned experimentalist!