“Yes; yes; I understand,” he said absently; though it was clear that he did not know what she meant.
She turned and looked at him musingly, with a composure that was complete; but a barrier in her heart broke down suddenly.
“My girlhood, the beautiful ignorance of life, has all gone now. It began to go as soon as I came home to live with you; but I wish—I wish—it had not gone—so wretchedly, so cruelly. Good night.”
She spoke with difficulty, and he saw that she was deeply moved; and even after the rustle of her skirts had died away in the hall above he stood looking after her, and listening and wondering. Then he opened a bundle of papers containing his computations and bent over them in deep absorption.
“She will sign it; she will sign it,” he repeated, though he did not raise his head.
When twelve o’clock struck he went to the front doorstep and looked up through the boughs of the cedars to the great host of stars. He gazed long, muttering as though at prayer, while the night wind blew upon him until he was chilled.
“The frost, the frost, it will cut it down, the corn, the corn, the beautiful corn! But it is too late, too late!”
He went in and closed the door, muttering, “The corn! the corn!”
CHAPTER XXXII
IN SEMINARY SQUARE
At midnight Leighton sat in the old house in Seminary Square debating the situation with Rodney Merriam.