"If you will drive me over I will do what I can," she said.
Now she had succeeded Mrs. Hastings lost no time, and they set out for the Creightons' homestead next day, while soon after they reached it she tactfully contrived that Sally should be left alone with Agatha. They stood outside the house together when the latter turned to her companion.
"Sally," she said, "there is something that I must tell you."
Sally glanced at her face, and then walked quietly forward until the log barn hid them from the house. Then she sat down upon a pile of straw in its shadow and signed to Agatha that she should take a place beside her.
"Now," she said sharply, "you can go on; it's about Gregory?"
Agatha, who found it very difficult to begin, though she had been well primed by Hastings on the previous evening, sat down amidst the straw, and looked about her for a moment or two. It was a hot afternoon, dazzlingly bright, and almost breathlessly still. In front of her the dark green wheat rolled waist-high, and beyond it the vast sweep of whitened grass rolled back to the sky-line flooded with light. Far away a team and a waggon slowly moved across it, but that was the only sign of life, and no sound from the house reached them to break the heavy stillness.
Then she nerved herself to the effort, and spoke quietly for several minutes before she glanced at her companion. It was very evident that the latter had understood all that she had said, for she sat very still with a hard, set face.
"Oh!" she said, "if I'd thought you'd come to tell me this because you were vexed with me, I'd know what to do."
This was what Agatha had dreaded. It certainly looked as if she had come to triumph over her rival's humiliation, but Sally made it clear that she acquitted her of that intention.
"Still," she said, "I know that wasn't the reason, and I'm not mad with—you. It hurts"—and she made a little abrupt movement—"but I know it's true." Then she turned to Agatha suddenly. "Why did you do it?"