"Well, I thought so, too; but I'm not above anything when it's a question of danger to—you."
The slight deepening of his tone was enough to make her hold her breath; but she would not let emotion affect her desire to make her intention clear to him.
"I do not believe there is any danger," she said, "but if there is I think I cannot regard it. I—I am not sure I can make you understand—but I want to! It is not just an idle whim that makes me stay here this winter; it is not because I am tired of other things, things I've always had. I have been restless, I confess, but it is not restlessness that has made me decide to stay here. I have no theories of life. I'm afraid I've rather scorned the people who have; but somehow I know that I have something to do here. I cherish the belief that I have. I have never had any special thing to do, before, you see! So even if I knew that there was danger in my living in that little brown house, and having poor Grace with me, I should ignore the danger, because—well, because there is something for me to do here, and I am going to try to do it."
They were down in the valley by this time, Mother Cary's lamp twinkling far above them; there was light enough from the starlit sky for her to see that he had taken off his old cap, worn out of deference to her arrival, and that he ran his fingers backward through his hair, as always when he was troubled. He did not reply until they turned into the shadow of the wooded road and Rosy was climbing the last half mile of their drive.
"God knows, there's work a-plenty for every comer," he said. "It is not for me to tell you to keep out of it. But I hadn't thought of it in that way—for you."
"Perhaps I ought to tell you," she said, "that I can help in another way. I have heard Mother Cary talk about the people farther back in the mountains—the people you see, but that only come out, she says, when the 'summer folks' are gone. Grace has told me about them, too. I—I have some money at my disposal—I know where I can get a good deal. I thought perhaps you might—and Grace—use it in some way—you would know how, wouldn't you?"
The thought of her deception, if such it was, made her hesitate in her speech; but her disappointment was quick and keen that he did not at once accept her suggestion. When at last he spoke, his voice sounded tired, and she did not understand his answer until she had pondered it that night in her own room at Mother Cary's.
"I am afraid," he said, "that even with what you think is a good deal, we should need another miracle of the loaves and fishes."