When Polly returned he was properly contrite and set to work assisting with the evening meal. Polly was silent for the most part, but she was deeply concerned.
“She says she’s going to marry Brace,” she confided.
“Well, I reckon if she says she is, she is!” Peter grunted. “She looks capable of doing it.”
“Peter, you mustn’t be hard.”
“I hope to the Lord I can be hard.” Peter looked grim. “It’s being soft and easy as has laid us open to––what?”
“Peter, you give me the creeps.”
Peter and Polly were in the kitchen when Kathryn came downstairs. She had had a bath and a nap. She had resorted to her toilet aids and she looked pathetically lovely as she crouched by the hearth in the empty room and waited for Northrup’s return. Every gesture she made bespoke the sweet clinging woman bent on mercy’s task.
She again saw herself in a dramatic scene. Northrup would open the door––that one! Kathryn fixed her eyes on the middle door––he would look at her––reel back; call her name, and she would rush to him, fall in his arms; then control herself, lead him to the fire and break the sad news to him gently, sweetly. He would kneel at her feet, bury his face in her lap–––
But while Kathryn was mentally rehearsing this and thrilling at the success of her wonderful intuitions, Northrup was striding along the road toward the inn, his head bent forward, his hands in his pockets. He was feeling rather the worse for wear; the consequences of his deeds and promises were hurtling about him like tangible, bruising things.
He was never to see Mary-Clare again! That had sounded fine and noble when it meant her freedom from Larry Rivers, but what a beastly thing it seemed, viewed from Mary-Clare’s 199 side. What would she think of him? After those hours of understanding––those hours weighted with happiness and delight that neither of them dared to call by their true names, so beautiful and fragile were they! Those hours had been like bubbles in which all that was real was reflected. They had breathed upon them, watched them, but had not touched them frankly. And now–––