“No, it's not that. I don't know what it is. In fact, Mr. Garner says—”
“What does he say, Ida?” Helen threw into the gap left by her cousin's failure to proceed, and stood staring.
“Well, you know it is easy sometimes to tell when one is not revealing everything, and I felt that way about Mr. Garner when he called night before last. In the first place, though he tried to do it in a casual sort of way, he kept talking of Carson all the time. It was almost as if he had come to see if I would confirm some secret fear of his, for he seemed to get near it several times and then backed out. Once he went further than he intended, for he said, as if it were a slip of the lip, when we were speculating on the possible cause of Carson's depression—he said, 'There is one thing, Miss Ida, that I fear, and I fear it so much that I dare not even mention it to myself.'”
“Oh!” exclaimed Helen, and she leaned on the back of her chair; “what could he have meant?”
“I don't know; Mr. Garner wouldn't explain; in fact, he seemed rather upset by his unintentional remark. He laughed awkwardly and changed the subject, and never alluded to Carson again while he stayed. As he was getting his hat in the hall, I followed him and tried to pin him down to some sort of explanation, and then he made an effort to throw me off. 'Oh,' he said, 'you know Carson is terribly blue about losing Helen, and it has, of course, caused him to care less about his election, but he'll come around in time.' I told Mr. Garner then that I was sure he had meant something else. I was looking straight at him and saw his glance fall, but that was all I got out of him. Something is wrong, Helen—something very, very serious.”
“Have you seen Carson lately, Ida?” Helen asked, with rigid lips.
“Not to speak to him; he seems to avoid me, but as I sat in the window of my room yesterday afternoon I saw him go by. He didn't see me, but I saw his face in repose, and oh, cousin, it wrung my heart. He really must have some great secret trouble, and it hurts me to feel that I can't help him bear it. He used to confide in me, but he seems to shun me now, and that, too, in itself, is queer.”
“It is not about his mother, either,” Helen sighed, “for her health has been improving lately.” And as Miss Tarpley was leaving she accompanied her, gloomily to the door.
The twilight fell softly, and as Helen sat in the hammock on the veranda her father came in at the gate and up the walk. She rose to greet him with her customary kiss, and taking his arm they began to stroll back and forth along the veranda. She was hoping that he would speak of Carson Dwight, but he didn't, and she was forced to mention him herself, which she did rather stiffly in her effort to make it appear as merely casual.
“Ida was saying this afternoon that Carson is not looking well—or, rather, that he seems to be worried,” she faltered out, and then she hung on to the Major's arm and waited.