She sat down by him and told him of Stella's illness, of the disappearance of her mother and her return. Of Patsy's suggestion she did not speak. It would be too much for the poor boy, who sat, knitting his brows over her tale, his face changing as he looked down at the cigarette between his fingers. He had interjected one breathless question. Was Stella better? Was she in any danger? And his mother had answered that Dr. Costello was satisfied that the girl would mend now.
"I suppose I must wait till she is better before seeing her," he said, when his mother paused. "Poor little darling! I may tell you, Mother, my mind is not shaken. I shall marry Stella if she will have me."
"You can walk with me if you like to the Waterfall Cottage," she said, "and wait for me. There is something about the place that makes a coward of me. It will be worse than ever now after your discovery."
She laughed nervously.
"Poor mother, you have too many troubles to bear!" he said with loving compassion. "You carry all our burdens."
"I have sent Patsy to identify your dead man. I think he can do it."
She was saying to herself that never, never must Terry know the charges that had been brought against his father. They might become a country tale—but the whole countryside might ring with the story without any one having the cruelty to repeat it to Terry.
The night was closing down—Christmas was close at hand, and it was already the first day of the Shortest Days—when they started. A few dry flakes of snow came in the wind as they crossed the park to the South lodge, silent now and empty. Under the trees as they went down the road it was already dark.
The window of the little sitting-room of the Waterfall Cottage threw its cheerful rosy light out over the road. The bedroom window above showed a dimmer light.
"Perhaps, after all," she said, "you might come in and wait for me. I see Susan has lit the fire downstairs. She has not been lighting it since Stella's illness—I have got a second key for the padlock, so we shall not have to wait, rattling at the gate."