Miss Sarah took the gilt-framed picture from his hand. She did not need his disconnectedly self-conscious explanation to understand.
"Voluble, verbal gratitude is not an uncommon thing," she answered. "I am going to ask far more than that of you. I've kept her picture always on my table, Stephen, ever since we found it; and I should miss it greatly if I were not to see it often. Do you mind leaving it here, in your room upstairs? I am going to ask that of you, and if you don't mind doing so, then I—I would suggest, too, that you might kiss the—the first 'dressed up lady you ever did git to know,' who must bid you good-night now."
The boyish hesitation with which he saluted Miss Sarah's faded pink cheek was far more delicately flattering than all the effusion in the world could ever have been. After she had left them alone Steve turned and gazed at Caleb, wonder in his face.
"I've never forgotten the way she shook hands with me, that day," he said slowly. "I wondered then if there could be other women with voices just as kind. And I—I'm wondering now."
Caleb smiled.
"I've often speculated on that myself, Steve," he remarked. "And I don't know. I don't know! Sarah is pretty human—even for a Baptist, eh?"
They both laughed over that rainy day which the words recalled; they sat and talked and smoked, but no matter what trend the conversation took, Caleb failed to mention the document or the tax receipts which he had found ten years before in Old Tom's tin box. Even if he had not been entirely certain of it that first day when he had neglected to show them to Sarah, he knew now just what reason underlay his secrecy. Like Old Tom, he felt that his action was in a way more or less extenuated by circumstance. And still mindful of Dexter Allison's odd moment or two of guarded antagonism that very morning, he gradually led the conversation around to more recent things.
"I suppose you have had your conference with Mr. Allison, Steve?" he suggested in a matter-of-fact way.
Instantly at that question all the boyishness left the other's face. He looked away and looked back again, very deliberately.
"No more than a word," he answered. "He asked me to come down again, toward the end of the week, if I could get away. He said no doubt I would want to spend all the time I could to-day with you and Miss Sarah."