"Mother thinks I am soundly asleep under the blankets by now. But how could I sleep without one sight of you?—haven't caught a glimpse of you all day. Mother will lock the door at ten o'clock, and if I am not in before then I shall have to sleep on the clothes line in the back yard. It is all up ready."
CHAPTER VII
THE LAME SHEPHERD
Late the next evening Stephen Collins called on Phebe again, still hoping his offer of help would be accepted.
They were alone together in the back parlour. "I do hope, Mrs. Waring, you will not think me too interfering, but for old friendship's sake I could not keep from coming. It grieves me so to think you are placed as you are and that you will not allow me to help you." He looked her steadily in the face, and she returned his gaze long enough to be quite sure he was not one of those who condemned her. Yet, in spite of that, her woman's heart craved for the assurance of word as well as look.
"But why should you trouble, Mr. Collins? There are plenty of people who will say it serves me right, and that I must have been to blame"—the words seemed as if they would not come—"that I was not—that it was not an easy thing to live with me—to get on with me."
Stephen Collins rose from his chair with an impetuous movement, and went and stood by the fire with his elbow on the mantelpiece. "Of course," he exclaimed, "the world will talk, but any one who knows you would fling back that accusation as a lie!"
They wore both silent for a minute. Phebe was feeling a relief and gladness no words she could think of would match. At last she said: "It makes a difference, too, if it is known that I could have gone with him if I had chosen. Ralph spoke to me about going two months ago."
"It would have been very difficult for Ralph to have taken you and the children with him, seeing he had no home prepared to take you to."