But the faith in her eyes upset him. He wanted to be truthful. Ah! if only Fate would let him!
"And I startled you!" marveled Mr. Abbott.
"Yes," said Kenny.
He walked back through the silence of the pines with remorse in his heart, paying little heed to Mr. Abbott's talk of vacation. The wistaria ladder, the cloister of pines, the lonely cabin where Joan spent truant hours of peace, were to him things of infinite pathos. And like the day in the garret, yesterday seemed aeons back. He wondered why, conscious of a subtle, unforgettable sense of change in himself. Something mysteriously had altered.
The memory of the pain and horror in his heart, he dismissed with a frown. As Adam said, he never dwelt upon the things that failed to please him. The pain was past. The peace of the present lay in his heart. It had even crowded out the memory of Adam and the notebook.
He was glad when Mr. Abbott said good night and took a footpath to the west. Well, it had been a mystery this time that he hadn't wanted to keep. But why, Oh, why, he wondered a little sadly, must all his mysteries end in anticlimax? Absurd, the little man in his frock coat trotting out of the cabin door!
"Joan, Joan!" he pleaded. "Why didn't you tell me? Am I then not your friend?"
"I'm sorry, Kenny." She laid her hand wistfully upon his arm. "Mr. Abbott asked me not to tell you."
"Why?"
"I don't know."