Taking up the paper with hands that trembled so she scarce could distinguish the words, she read the paragraph again.
Suddenly, she recalled the man's puzzled expression when she had told him her name, and she seemed to hear him say, again, “Wakefield? Wakefield? Where have I seen that name?”
She looked at the date of the paper. Beyond all doubt, the man sleeping there in the other room;—the man whom she had saved from a suicide's end in the river;—whom she had nursed through the hell of delirium tremens;—whom she had yearned over as over her own son, and for whom, to save from the just penalty of his crime, she had lied—beyond all doubt that man had robbed her of the money that was to have insured to her peace and comfort in the closing years of her life.
Carefully, Auntie Sue laid the garment she had just mended with such loving care, with the rest of Brian Kent's clothing, on the near-by chair. Rising, she went with slow, troubled step to the porch.
There was no moon, that night, to turn the waters of The Bend into a stream of silvery light. But the stars were shining bright and clear, and she could see the river where it made its dark, mysterious way between the walls of shadowy hills; and borne to her ears on the gentle night wind came the deep, thundering roar of the angry waters at Elbow Rock.
For a long time she stood there on the porch looking into the night, with the light from the open door of her little house behind her; and she felt very lonely, very tired, and very old. With her beautiful old face upturned to the infinite sky, where shining worlds are scattered in such lavish profusion, she listened, listened to the river that, with its countless and complex currents, swept so irresistibly onward along the way that was set for it by Him who swung those star-worlds in the limitless space of that mighty arch above. And something of the spirit that broods ever over the river must have entered into the soul of Auntie Sue. When she turned back into the house, there was a smile on her face, though her eyes were wet with tears.
Going to the chair that held Brian Kent's clothing, she took the garments in her arms and pressed them to her lips. Then she carried them to his room.
For some time she remained in that darkened chamber beside the sleeping man.
When she returned to the living-room, she again took up the newspaper. Very carefully, that her sleeping companions in the house might not hear her, she went to the kitchen, the paper in her hand. Very carefully, that no sound should betray her act, she burned the paper in the kitchen stove.