She stayed at the window for a long time, and found meager comfort at last in the thought that Lewis could not have guessed. How could he have guessed what she herself had not known? She arose and went back to bed. Then she lay thinking and planning a course that should keep not only Lewis but also Mrs. Leighton and mammy blind to the wound she bore. And while she was in the midst of planning, sleep came and made good its ancient right to lock hands with tired youth.
Leighton was crestfallen to see in what high spirits Lew had come back from his first day with Natalie. He lost faith at once in H lne's cure. Then, as they went to bed, he clutched at a straw.
"Lew," he asked, "did you tell your pal everything?"
"Everything I could think of in the time," said Lewis, smiling. "One day isn't much when you've got half of two lives to go over. Of course there were things we forgot. We'll have them to tell to-morrow."
"Was Folly one of the things you forgot?"
"No," answered Lewis and paused, a puzzled look on his brow. He was wondering why he had remembered Folly. To-night she seemed very far away. Then he threw back his head and looked at his father. "Why did you ask that?"
Leighton did not answer for a moment. Finally he said:
"Because it's the one thing you hadn't a right to keep to yourself. I'm glad you saw that. Always start square with a woman. If you do,—afterward,—she'll forgive you anything."
Lewis went to bed with the puzzled look still on his face. It was not because he had seen anything that he had told of Folly. He had told of her simply as a part of chronology—something that couldn't be skipped without leaving a gap. Now he wondered, if he had had time to think, would he have told? He had scarcely put the question to himself when sleep blotted out thought.
On the next day Leighton had the bays hitched to what was left of the carryall, and with Silas and Lewis drove over to Aunt Jed's to pay his respects to Mrs. Leighton. Natalie and Lew went off for a ramble in the hills. Mammy bustled about her kitchen dreaming out a dream of an early dinner for the company, and murmuring instructions to Ephy, a pale little slip of a woman whom the household, seeking to help, had installed as helper. Mrs. Leighton stayed with Leighton out under the elms. They talked little, but they said much.