I wondered why the judge had not told me that. He must have been thinking of something else when I asked him where Mattie was. I remembered his wide gesture toward the bay, which I had misconstrued into meaning that she had been buried in some place other than the family vault. Evidently I was the only one who knew she had committed suicide. I had never told any one of the note I had found in the bookcase, and I was glad now that I had not. Her message was safe with me. I resolved that I would have a tombstone erected for Mattie in that part of the cemetery which is sacred to those who are lost at sea.
At four o’clock we walked back to Mrs. Dove’s house and gained her husband’s consent to her staying all night with me. We asked Mr. Dove if he wanted to come, too, but he scorned the idea. And Mrs. Dove did not urge it, I noticed; she seemed to think that this was something we had planned by ourselves and that no men-folks were wanted. She divided the beach-plums scrupulously in half, in spite of my protest, and soon had my share simmering upon the range. The House of the Five Pines relaxed and became filled with good smells and homelike noises and made a pretense of being all that a house should be.
Mrs. Dove ran from room to room, exclaiming with enthusiasm over what she found, just as Jasper and I had done. She was so pleased with everything that she restored my courage.
“You never in the world are going to give this up,” she said. “I won’t let you.”
The secret stairs did not interest her half as much as the Canton china and the patchwork quilts.
“I never knew Mis’ Hawes had that pattern,” she would say; or, “It’s a wonder they never put that out on the line!” I could see that she was going to relish telling the rest of the town what the House of the Five Pines contained. She was stealing a march on them.
“Didn’t you ever come here?” I asked.
She was scandalized at the suggestion.
“Nobody did. Not since old Mother Hawes died, anyway. And before that we just used to talk to her through the window. That was her room, that nice one across the hall in front of the dining-room. Shall we sleep there?”
I showed her Mattie’s little room upstairs.