“Mother, don’t judge her too quickly. A girl who has to stay all night out in the woods with a chap like me, is not likely to be very proud of telling it around.”
“Why, William Bennett!”
Billy was as much astonished to see his mother turn pale as he was to hear in that stern tone his full name. “Sit down, marms. It’s all right for me, but pretty rocky for her.”
Then he told her the whole story, except that he did not divulge Erminie’s name, nor their relation to each other.
For a long time they were silent, his mother strangely serious and sad, it seemed to Billy. At length she turned to him, took both his hands in hers, and looked steadily in his eyes, but still did not speak.
He bore the scrutiny well though it made him uncomfortable. “Don’t look like that, mother. What could we have done different or better than we did?”
She kissed him on the cheek and he felt her closer clasp. “Nothing, my boy. It was one of those trying situations one cannot foresee. But it is serious. Do you realize what it will entail upon this girl if evil-speaking people learn the story?”
“Gee! That’s what I’ve been thinking of all night. But I don’t see how any one is to know about it.”
“If she is questioned she will have to tell more than one falsehood to keep people from knowing some one was with her; and lies always defeat themselves.”
“Well, mother, if it comes to the worst I shall stand by her.”