XXXVIII
The next morning Adelle went straight to the terrace wall from her room where she had her coffee. All she had to do was to step out of the French window and around the corner of the house, for she had not yet moved to the rooms designed for her in the other wing. This morning she wished to know surely whether the mason had gone off on his spree or had really turned back as she thought he had the night before. And there he was on the job, sure enough! Upon her approach, he looked up and rumpled his hat over his head, which was his shamefaced method of saluting a lady. He still looked somewhat stormy, but there were no traces of debauch in his eyes, and he was tossing in his mortar with a fine swing, and handling the heavy stones as if they were loaves of bread.
"Good-morning, Mr. Clark," was all that Adelle said, and started to go on.
But the mason called out,—
"Say!" and throwing down his trowel he hunted for something in his hip pocket. "You was asking me about that town in the East—Alton. Well, I found this after you had gone."
He produced a tattered package of what seemed to be old letters, yellowed with age and torn at the corners, and handed them up to Adelle.
"They were grandfather's and mother always kep' 'em; I don't know why. When she died one of my sisters giv' em to me. I been totin' 'em 'round in my trunk ever since. They're kind of dirty and spotted," he apologized for their condition. "But they were pretty old, I guess, when I got 'em, and they ain't had much care since.... Last night after you were up there I got 'em out of the trunk and tried to read 'em. There's one there from Alton—it's got the postmark on the outside."
Clark pointed with his mortar-coated thumb to the faint circle of the stamp in the corner. Adelle took the letter from him with a sense of faintness that she could not explain. She had been right in her conjecture: that seemed to her a very great point.
"I was bringin' 'em up to the house last night," the mason explained, "but seen you had company, so kep' 'em until to-day."