“Will you be good enough to pass your way?” he answered, rising.
“Not yet,” she replied, and seated herself on the steps. The next moment she was crying, silently, but that only lasted until she could touch her eyes with her handkerchief.
He stood above her on the steps. Perhaps it was astonishment that sealed his lips, perhaps decency. He had noticed that she was slightly lame, although her slender figure appeared almost faultless. He waited for a moment.
Far on the clearing’s dusky edge a white-throated sparrow called persistently to a mate that did not answer.
If Helm felt alarm or feared treachery his voice did not betray it. “What is the trouble?” he demanded, less roughly.
She said, without looking at him: “I have deceived you. There was a letter for you to-day. It came apart and—I found—this—”
She held out a bit of paper. He took it mechanically. His face had suddenly turned gray.
The paper was fibre paper. He stood there breathless, his face a ghastly, bloodless mask; and when he found his voice it was only the ghost of a voice.
“What is all this about?” he asked.
“About fibre paper,” she answered, looking up at him.