“I overheard—I couldn’t help overhearing.” Then her cheeks grew rosier. “I’ll own up. I listened at the door. I wanted to know. And that’s why I came after you. You have kept our little secret and I know you have done your best in other ways. So that’s why I’m here. I want to thank you. And—I—Well, I think that’s all!”
It seemed to finish it as far as I was concerned, too; I couldn’t pump a word up out of myself. So we stood there and looked up into the trees.
“Father has been talking to them to-day,” she said, after a time. “Perhaps they are warned now and won’t be up to any more mischief. And they ought to be sorry for what they have done to you. I think you can have a lot of influence over them after this.”
“I don’t know about that. I’m going away from here.”
That statement astonished her just as much as it astonished me. I had not thought of announcing my departure ten seconds before; it had not been in my mind that I was going away. But all of a sudden the memory of what I had told the judge about the horse popped into my thoughts. Considering what would be my uncle’s state of mind after the exposure, I reckon the going-away idea followed as naturally as the right answer in a sum of addition.
“I had supposed that your outlook—your position with your uncle—was very promising,” she said. “The town needs smart men.”
The fact that she had spent one thought upon my condition interested me more than the implied compliment.
“If I stay with him I’ll only be a country cheat and horse-dickerer. I want to be something else,” I told her. “This very day my uncle is trying to put up a job on your father. I have told the judge about it.”
“I heard you. It was another reason why I wanted to speak to you—to encourage you in being honest. There’s no need of father bringing you into the matter at all. It would only make trouble between your uncle and you. I’ll speak to father.”
“You’d better not, for then you’d be making trouble for yourself. I’d rather take all the blame of it.”