He seized her hand so that she winced.
"You've not forgotten! You shall come this afternoon." And there, with a smile, she left him, still standing by the silent image of St. Anthony; and, gratitude being that part of prayer which belongs to the heart and has nothing in common with delay, John knelt down again. When Jill looked back over her shoulder, his head was buried in his hands.
The little old white-haired lady was waiting over the mid-day meal for him when he returned. His father had taken his food and gone out again, leaving her alone to keep John company. She was sitting patiently there at the head of the table and, by the side of her empty plate, stood a small bottle containing white pills, over which she hurriedly laid her hand as he entered.
But clever as they are, in their cunning, childish ways, old people lose all the superior craft of deceit. They go back to childhood when they imagine that once a thing is hidden, it is out of sight. That is not at all the case. There comes a moment when it is too late to conceal; when curiosity will bring the hidden thing twice vividly before the eyes. Under the very nose of John, was the best place for that secret bottle of pills, had she needed it not to be seen.
As it was, his eyes travelled more quickly than her hand. She made a gentle little effort to hide her concern as well. She smiled up at him, asking where he had been. But it would not do. The child is parent to the man, he is parent to the woman too--a stern parent, moreover, who will brook no simple trifling with his authority, who overlooks nothing and whose judgments are the blind record of an implacable justice. John could not let that little deception pass. Instead of answering her question, instead of taking his place at the table, he came to her side and put one arm gently round her neck.
"What are you hiding, dearest?" he asked.
Like a child, who is discovered in the act of nefarious negotiations with the good things of this world, she quietly took her hand away. There stood the innocent little bottle in all its nakedness. John stared at it questioningly--then at his mother.
"Is it something that you have to take, dearest?" he asked. "Aren't you well?"
"Yes, I'm quite well," she said, and she played nervously with the cork in the little bottle. It was a delicate subject. She began to wish that she had never embarked upon it at all. But faith brings with it a rare quality of courage, and so firmly did she believe, with the quaint simplicity of her heart, in the course she had determined to adopt, that the wish broke like a bubble on the moment.
"Well, what is in the bottle?" persisted John.