I made no reply. She regarded me keenly.
“Roscoe,” she went on, “do you WANT to go somewheres else?”
“I don't know, Dorinda. I might as well be here as anywhere, perhaps. I am rather blue and discouraged just now, that's all.”
“I can't blame you much. But bein' discouraged don't do any good. Besides, it's always darkest just afore dawn, they say; anyhow, I've had that preached to me ever since I was a girl and I've tried to believe it through a good many cloudy spells. Roscoe, don't you let old Jed or anybody DRIVE you out of Denboro, but, if you WANT to go—if you think you'd ought to go, to earn money or anything, don't you worry about leavin' Comfort. I'll look out for her as well as if she was my own. Remember that.”
I laid my hand on hers. “Thank you,” I said, earnestly. “Dorinda, you are a good woman.”
To my surprise the eyes behind the spectacles became misty. Tears in Dorinda's eyes! When she spoke it was in, for her, a curiously hesitating tone.
“Roscoe,” she faltered, “I wonder if you'd be cross if I asked about what wan't any of my business. I'm old enough to be your grandma, pretty nigh, so I'm goin' to risk it. You used to be independent enough. You never used to care for the town or anybody in it. Lately you've changed. Changed in a good many ways. Is somethin' besides this Lane affair frettin' you? Is somebody frettin' you? Are you worried about—that one?”
She had caught me unawares. I felt the blood tingle in my cheeks. I tried to laugh and made a failure of the attempt.
“That one?” I repeated. “I—Why, I don't understand, Dorinda.”
“Don't you? Well, if you don't then I'm just talkin' silly, that's all. If you do, I . . . . Humph! I might have known it!”