“Plant a lie in the garden of your soul,” he had said, “and it will flourish worse than any poisonous weed. Do not think you can uproot it when you will, for it will grow and grow till it is stronger than you, and not all your prayers and tears can rend its terrible roots out of your life.”
Sam had wondered, as she had, why the preacher should have talked like that to a congregation of good people. For they had all seemed good to her; but now she realized that if the Disbrows were living a lie perhaps other persons whom she knew and liked were doing so, too. For the first time in Annie Laurie’s life a tidal wave of suspicion, distrust and hatred of the world swept over her, and it seemed like a wicked place—a place made up of beings who tried to injure each other.
She felt so ill that she leaned against a tree.
Sam seemed to take no notice, however. He was watching his dogs, and talking on and on in his cheerful way.
“And another fine thing is going to happen,” he said. “Dad has got up spunk enough at last to send Hannah up to Williamsburg to have her eyes operated upon, and sis has found the courage to go. Do you know, I believe that after she gets those poor eyes of hers straightened she won’t be so shy and queer as she is now. I suppose she loathes going out where she’ll meet people, when she has to look all over the premises whenever she tries to fix her eyes on the person she’s talking to. Then, if dad could only get some one in to take care of poor mother, Hannah could go away to school too, perhaps, and grow to be a little more like other folks.”
Annie Laurie knew that Sam would not have talked about his own people in this free way to anyone but her. The two had spoken out their minds to each other for years, and it had come to be second nature for them to do it.
And now here they were with a black secret between them. She, Annie Laurie, who had meant always to be Sam’s true friend, was suspicious of him! Yet she could not look at him, standing there smiling in the spring sunlight, his eyes full of enthusiasm, and think him guilty of any knowledge of wrong-doing on the part of his father.
How very, very strange life seemed! Once she had thought it like a road. One had only to walk ahead, doing right and nodding to the passers-by, and all would be well. Now she saw how it twisted, turned, and split—this road—and how difficult it was to tell which turning to take, or which by-path to seek.
Then an impulse came over her almost as strong and swift as one of those which were forever besetting Azalea.
“Sam,” she said, “I haven’t been in your house for years. Do you know, I would like to go. I’d like to go now. Do you think I might?”