Lewis had no lies for Teresa. He would not lie to her by so much as a glance. She was fit for the truth. Perfectly fit. Had he ever been face to face with any one else so stripped, fit and ready for truth!
“There won’t be any question about that now. I’m sure of so much,” Lewis said. “We’ll keep you right here at Mary’s Field. And Petra will stay with you all the time. Move her things here. Make it her home. And Neil will be near.”
She was smiling. Her hand stayed under her pillow. But tears came to her eyes. Only two escaped, though: one down either cheek. She ignored them but Lewis wiped them away with his own handkerchief. “My blessed child,” he said. “You wanted to know. It is right that you should, I think.”
“Of course,” she answered. “And I knew that you would tell me. I am—very satisfied. It will be nice, not leaving Mary’s Field. Having Petra here all the time. Having Neil near. Will you tell them how things are with me? You won’t leave it for me to tell them?”
“Yes. Soon, I’ll tell them. But not to-night, I think. They aren’t like you, Teresa. It will go harder with them. They will need time—and your prayers. You must pray that they may be brave. Neil suspects already, I can tell you. But he still hopes. Petra has only a bewildered, vague fear. So Neil says, anyway. They needn’t be told yet.”
“But when the time comes, it will be you—not Neil, nor Janet—nobody else but you, Doctor Pryne,—who tells Petra? Unless it’s me. I may want to be the one to tell her in the end. But otherwise you? And you’ll take care of her?”
“Why do you say this? Petra is the dearest thing in life to me, Teresa. But I don’t know that that will help her. She doesn’t let me very close to her. Neil or Janet might be better.”
“Please tell her now, this afternoon, that she’s the dearest thing in life to you. She doesn’t dream it. She’s so silly and humble. She’s sweet. She told me, just a little while ago, before she took your pills like a good child and went away to sleep in the meadow, that Dick had showed you that letter she wrote to him at Mount Desert. She’s simply dying with humiliation over it. You see, it was you, Doctor, she meant in the letter, and she has no other thought but that you know it was. That you might guess wrong hasn’t even occurred to her. You did guess wrong, didn’t you?”
Lewis pushed back his chair. Got up. “Teresa, bless you. I wouldn’t believe any one but you—hardly Petra herself. It’s almost impossible to believe. But somehow—I can—I do believe that you know what you are saying.”
“You’re like Petra, I think. Humble and silly. But sweet.”