Jessica lifted her eyes, shining with a great thankfulness. During these last few days the impulse to tell all that she had concealed had been almost irresistible; now the barrier had fallen. The secret she had repressed so long came forth in a rush of sentences that left him mute and amazed.
"I should have told you before," she ended, "but I didn't know—I wasn't sure—" She broke down for very joy.
He looked at her with eyes unnaturally bright. "Tell me everything, Jessica!" he said. "Everything from the beginning!"
She drew the shade wider before the open window, where he could look down across the two miles of darkening foliage to the far huddle of the town—a group of toy houses now hazily indistinct—and, seated beside him, his hand in hers, poured out the whole. She had never framed it into words; she had pondered each incident severally, apart, as it were, from its context. Now, with the loss of memory and the pitiful struggle of recollection as a background, the narrative painted itself in vivid colors to whose pathos and meaning her every instinct was alive. Her first view of Hugh, the street fight and the revelation of the violin—the part she and Prendergast had taken—the rescue of the child—the leaving of the draft in the cabin, and the strange sleep-walking that had so nearly found a dubious ending—she told all. She did not realize that she was revealing the depths of her own heart without reserve. If she omitted to tell of his evil reputation and the neighborhood's hatred, who could blame? She was a woman, and she loved them both.
Dusk came before the moving recital was finished. The rose of sunset grew over the trellised west, faded, and the gloom deepened to darkness, pricked by stars. The old man from the first had scarcely spoken. When she ended she could hardly see his face, and waited anxiously to hear what he might say. Presently he broke the silence.
"He was young and irresponsible, Jessica," he said. "Money always came so easily. He didn't realize what he was doing when he signed that draft. He has learned a lesson out in the world. It won't hurt his career in the end, for no one but you and I and one other knows it. Thank God! If his memory comes back—"
"Oh, it will!" she breathed. "It must! That day on the Knob he only needed the clue! When I tell him who I am, he will know me. He will remember it all. I am sure—sure! Will you let me bring him to you?" she added softly.
"Yes," he said, pressing her hand, "to-morrow. I shall be stronger in the morning."
She rose and lighted the lamp, shading it from his eyes.