Then there came that lightning-like change of mood which always left him breathless in his inability to follow it. The mirth went out of her eyes––her lips drooped and began to work strangely as she knelt and gazed up at him.
“I bought his mortgage,” she told him slowly. “I bought it from Judge Maynard a week ago with part of the money he gave me for our place there below his. He was very generous. Somehow I feel that he paid me––much more than it was worth. He’s always wanted it and––and I––there wasn’t any need for me to stay there any more, was there?”
Old Jerry had never seen a face so terribly earnest before––so hungrily wistful––but it was the light that glowed in that kneeling girl’s eyes that held him dumb. It left him completely incapable of coherent thought, yet mechanically his mind leaped back to that night, two weeks before, when Young Denny had stumbled and gone floundering to his knees before her, there on that very threshold. The boy’s own words had painted that picture for him too vividly for him to forget. And he knew, without reasoning it out, just from the world of pain there in her eyes, that she, too, at that moment was thinking of that limp figure––of the great red gash across its chin.
“I didn’t help him,” she went on, and now her voice was little more than a whisper. “I went and left him here alone––and hurt––when I should have stayed, that night when he went away. And so I bought it––I bought it because I thought some day he might come back––and need me even more. I thought if he did come––he’d feel as though he had just––come back home! And––and just to be here 265 waiting, I thought, too, might somehow help me to have faith that he would come, some day––safe!”
The old man felt the fiercely tense little arms go slack then. Her head went forward and lay heavy, pillowed in her hands upon his knees. But he sat there for a full minute, staring down at the thick, shimmering mass of her hair, swallowing an unaccountable lump that bothered his breathing preparatory to telling her all that he had kept waiting for just that opportunity, before he realized that she was crying. And for an equally long period he cast desperately about for the right thing to say. It came to him finally––a veritable inspiration.
“Why, you don’t want to cry,” he told her slowly. “They––they ain’t nothing to worry about now! For if that’s the case––if you’ve gone to work and bought it, why, I ain’t got no more jurisdiction over it––none whatever!”
Immediately she lifted her head and gazed long and questioningly at him, but Old Jerry’s face was only guilelessly grave. It was more than that––benevolent reassurance lit up every feature, and little by little her brimming eyes began to clear; they began to glisten with that baffling delight that had irritated him so before. She slipped slowly to her feet and stood and gazed down at him. Old Jerry knew then that he would never again see so radiant a face as hers was at that moment.
“I wasn’t crying because I was worried,” she said, and she managed not to laugh. “I’ve been doing that every night, all night long, for two weeks. That was before I understood––things! But today––this afternoon I found something––read something––that made me understand better. I––I’m just crying a little tonight because I am so glad.”