Keith was neither stern nor hurt. He still laughed pleasantly, and he tossed her whole labored explanation aside with a light: "Certainly—of course—to be sure—not at all! You did quite right, I assure you!" And then he remarked that it was a warm day, wasn't it? And Dorothy found herself hurrying down the Burton front walk with burning cheeks and a chagrined helplessness that left her furious and with an ineffably cheap feeling—yet not able to put her finger on any discourteous flaw in Keith's punctilious politeness.
"I wish I'd never said a word—not a word," she muttered hotly to herself as she hurried down the street. "I wonder if he thinks—I'll ever open my head to him about it again. Well, he needn't—worry! But—oh, Keith, Keith, how could you?" she choked brokenly. Then abruptly she turned down a side street, lest Mazie Sanborn, coming toward her, should see the big tears that were rolling down her cheeks.
CHAPTER XXIII
JOHN McGUIRE
So imperative was the knock at the kitchen door at six o'clock that July morning that Susan almost fell down the back stairs in her haste to obey the summons.
"Lan' sakes, Mis' McGuire, what a start you did give—why, Mis'
McGuire, what is it?" she interrupted herself, aghast, as Mrs.
McGuire, white-faced and wild-eyed, swept past her and began to pace
up and down the kitchen floor, moaning frenziedly:
"It's come—it's come—I knew't would come. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?"
"What's come?"
"Oh, John, John, my boy, my boy!"
"You don't mean he's—dead?"