"Were you bad?" David asked with interest.
Helena dropped her forehead on to his little warm shoulder. She could feel his heart beating, and his breath on her neck.
"Your head's pretty heavy," said David patiently; "and hot."
At that she lifted herself up, and tried to smile; "Come, dear precious, come up-stairs. Never mind if people scold me. I—deserve it."
"Do you?" said David. "Why?"
He was wide awake by this time, and pleaded against bed. "Tell me why, on the porch; I don't mind sitting on your lap out there," he bribed her; "though you are pretty hot to sit on," he added, truthfully.
She could not resist him; to have him on her knee, his tousled head on her breast, was an inexpressible comfort.
"When I go travelling with Dr. Lavendar," David announced drowsily, "I am going to put my trousers into the tops of my boots, like George does. Does God drink out of that Dipper?"
Her doubtful murmur seemed to satisfy him; he shut his eyes, nuzzling his head into her breast, and as she leaned her cheek on his hair—which he permitted because he was too sleepy to protest—the ache of sobs lessened in her throat. After a while, when he was sound asleep again, she carried him up-stairs and laid him in his bed, sitting beside him for a while lest he should awake. Then she went down to the porch and faced the situation….
Sometimes she got up and walked about; sometimes sat down, her elbows on her knees, her forehead in her hands, one foot tapping, tapping, tapping. Her first idea was flight: she must not wait for Lloyd; she must take David and go at once. By to-morrow, everybody would know. She would write Lloyd that she would await him in Philadelphia. "I will go to a hotel" she told herself. Of course, it was possible that Sam would keep his knowledge to himself, as his grandfather had done, but it was not probable. And even if he did, his knowledge made the place absolutely unendurable to her; she could not bear it for a day—for an hour! Yes; she must get off by tomorrow night; and—