"Yes. I shall be careful." He had not heard what she said, save that she had mentioned Esther's name. Rather he was thinking with a gratitude which shook his very soul that fate had at least spared the innocent. Esther was safe. She did not love him. He felt sure of that now. Strange irony, that his deepest thankfulness should be that Esther did not love him.
A small hand fell like a feather upon his arm.
"Harry!"
"Yes, Molly!"
He looked down into her quivering face and saw in it, dimly, the face of the girl in his locket, not a mere outward semblance this time but the soul of Molly Weston, reaching out to him across the years. Her light touch on his arm was the very shackle of fate. Her glance claimed him. Nothing that she had done could modify that claim—the terrible claim of weakness upon the strength which has misled it.
Vaguely he felt that this was the test, the ultimate test. If he failed now he was lost indeed. Something within him reached out blindly for the strength he had dreamed was his, found it, clutched it desperately—knew that it held firm.
He took the slight figure in his arms, felt that it still trembled and said the most comforting thing he could think of. "Don't worry, Molly. No one will ever know."
CHAPTER XXIV
Ester was sitting upon the back porch, hulling strawberries and watching with absent amusement the tireless efforts of Jane to induce a very fat and entirely brainless pup to shake hands. It had been a busy day, for owing to the absence of the free and independent "Saturday Help" Esther had insisted upon helping Aunt Amy in the kitchen. Now the Saturday pies and cakes were accomplished and only the strawberries lay between Esther and freedom.
She had intended, a little later, to walk out along the river road in search of marguerites, but when Mary, more than usually restless after her fainting spell of yesterday, had offered to go instead, she had not demurred. It would be quite as pleasant to take a book and sit out under the big elm. Esther was at that stage when everything seems to be for the best in this "best of all possible worlds." She was living through those suspended moments when life stands tiptoe, breathless with expectancy, yet calm with an assurance of joy to come.