“Me?” she murmured, wanly surprised. She was kneeling before the fireplace, wearing an old dress which was dusted with ashes, and upon her hands a pair of worn-out gloves of her father’s. Lindley appeared in the hall behind Hedrick, carrying under his arm something wrapped in brown paper. His expression led her to think that he had heard of her father’s relapse, and came on that account.
“Don’t look at me, Richard,” she said, smiling faintly as she rose, and stripping her hands of the clumsy gloves. “It’s good of you to come, though. Doctor Sloane thinks he is going to be better again.”
Richard inclined his head gravely, but did not speak.
“Well,” said Hedrick with a slight emphasis, “I guess I’ll go out in the yard a while.” And with shining eyes he left the room.
In the hall, out of range from the library door, he executed a triumphant but noiseless caper, and doubled with mirth, clapping his hand over his mouth to stifle the effervescings of his joy. He had recognized the ledger in the same wrapping in which he had left it in Mrs. Lindley’s vestibule. His moment had come: the climax of his enormous joke, the repayment in some small measure for the anguish he had so long endured. He crept silently back toward the door, flattened his back against the wall, and listened.
“Richard,” he heard Laura say, a vague alarm in her voice, “what is it? What is the matter?”
Then Lindley: “I did not know what to do about it. I couldn’t think of any sensible thing. I suppose what I am doing is the stupidest of all the things I thought of, but at least it’s honest—so I’ve brought it back to you myself. Take it, please.”
There was a crackling of the stiff wrapping paper, a little pause, then a strange sound from Laura. It was not vocal and no more than just audible: it was a prolonged scream in a whisper.
Hedrick ventured an eye at the crack, between the partly open door and its casing. Lindley stood with his back to him, but the boy had a clear view of Laura. She was leaning against the wall, facing Richard, the book clutched in both arms against her bosom, the wrapping paper on the floor at her feet.
“I thought of sending it back and pretending to think it had been left at my mother’s house by mistake,” said Richard sadly, “and of trying to make it seem that I hadn’t read any of it. I thought of a dozen ways to pretend I believed you hadn’t really meant me to read it——”