As Janet offered this conscientious information, Steve Brown looked in vain for any allusion to her secretiveness of the night before. In her bearing there was not the least vestige of arts and airs, nor any little intimation of mutual understanding; she simply looked up with wide-open eyes and told it to him. This honesty, quite as if she owed it, gave Steve a new experience in life; and he gazed into eyes that charmed him by the clarity of their look.
"You are going to the court-house to get a certificate!" he remarked.
"I do not belong here in Texas," she said, continuing her story. "I am from Ohio. I am stopping with the Dwights, down at Merrill. But for the past week I have been stopping at a farmer's in order to be nearer the school."
"Will you be going back to Ohio, possibly?"
"It might be that I shall go back. But it all depends. I may get a school if I pass."
She stepped forward to take leave of him. But just at that moment he thrust both hands deep into his pockets and bent his gaze intently upon the ground, his brows knit together. She waited.
"Miss Janet," he said, looking up suddenly, "I would be interested in knowing whether you pass."
"Well," she said, "I suppose I might easily let you know."
"My address is Thornton, Box 20. I get my mail every day—excepting the last few days, of course;—but I will get it again promptly as soon as I am out of this fix I am in. I don't suppose—"
"Why, are you in some sort of trouble?" she asked, interrupting him.