"Why don't you look at me?" he demanded crossly.
She did, and smiled again.
"You have the prettiest smile I ever saw!" he cried; then went on quickly, "I ran away because of something that happened. I'll tell you. My mother"—he flushed and his eyes fell—"came up to see me at school one day. My mother was very beautiful…. I was mad about her." Curiously enough, every trace of the Western cowboy had gone out of his voice and manner, which were an echo of the voice and manner of the Groton schoolboy whose experience he told. "I was proud of her—you know how a kid is. I kind of paraded her round and showed her off to the other fellows. No other fellow had such a beautiful mother. Then, as we were saying good-bye, a crowd of the boys all round, I did something—trod on her foot or something, I don't quite know what—and she lifted up her hand and slapped me across the face." He was white at the shocking memory. "Right there before them all, when I—I was adoring her. She had the temper of a devil, a sudden Spanish temper—the kind I have, too—and she never made the slightest effort to hold it down. She hit me and she laughed as though it was funny and she got into her carriage. I cut off to my room. I wanted to kill myself. I couldn't face any one. I wanted never to see her again. I guess I was a queer sort of kid…. I don't know …" He drew a big breath, dropped back to the present and his vivid color returned. "That's why I ran away from school, Miss Arundel."
"And they never brought you back?"
He laughed. "They never found me. I had quite a lot of money and I lost myself pretty cleverly…a boy of fourteen can, you know. It's a very common history. Well, I suppose they didn't break their necks over me either, after the first panic. They were busy people—my parents—remarkably busy going to the devil…. And they were eternally hard-up. You see, my grandfather had the money—still has it—and he's remarkably tight. I wrote to them after six years, when I was twenty. They wrote back; at least their lawyer did. They tried, not very sincerely, though, I think, to coax me East again… told me they'd double my allowance if I did—they've sent me a pittance—" He shuddered suddenly, a violent, primitive shiver. "I'm glad I didn't go," he said.
There was a long stillness. That dreadful climax to the special "business" of the Hilliards was relived in both their memories. But it was something of which neither could speak. Sheila wondered if the beautiful mother was that instant wearing the hideous prison dress. She wished that she had read the result of the trial. She wouldn't for the world question this pale and silent young man. The rest of their ride was quiet and rather mournful. They rode back at sunset and Hilliard bade her a troubled good-bye.
She wanted to say something comforting, reassuring. She watched him helplessly from where she stood on the porch as he walked across the clearing to his horse. Suddenly he slapped the pocket of his chaps and turned back. "Thunder!" he cried, "I'd forgotten the mail. A fellow left it at the ford. A paper for Miss Blake and a letter for you."
Sheila held out her hand. "A letter for me?" She took it. It was a strange hand, small and rather unsteady. The envelope was fat, the postmark Millings. Her flush of surprise ebbed. She knew whose letter it was—Sylvester Hudson's. He had found her out.
She did not even notice Cosme's departure. She went up to her loft, sat down on her cot and read.