“No, mother, I simply am not sleepy, that's all.” The old woman advanced a step nearer, her sharp eyes on the girl's white night-gown and bare feet. “Good gracious!” she cried. “You'll catch your death of cold. Go in the house this minute. I'll bet I know why you can't sleep. You are worried about what people are saying about Nelson Floyd's marrying Evelyn Duncan and throwing you over, as he no doubt has many other girls.”
“I wasn't thinking of it, mother.” Cynthia rose and started in. “He can marry her if he wants to.”
“Oh, well, you can pretend all you like. I reckon your pride would make you defend yourself. Now, go in the house.”
In the darkness of her room Cynthia sat on the side of her bed. She heard her mother's bare feet as the old woman went along the hall back to her room in the rear. Floyd might be in the grape-arbor now. As her light was extinguished, he would think she had gone to bed, and he would not whistle. Then a great, chilling doubt struck her. Perhaps he had really gone to Duncan's to see Evelyn. But no, a warm glow stole over her as she remembered that he had declined to go home from church in the captain's carriage that he might walk with her. No, it was not that; but perhaps some accident had happened to him—the stage-horses might have become frightened on that dangerous mountain road. The driver was often intoxicated, and in that condition was known to be reckless. Cynthia threw herself back in bed and pulled the light covering over her, but she did not go to sleep till far towards morning.
The sun was up when she awoke. Her mother was standing near her, a half-repentant look flitting over her wrinkled face.
“Don't get up unless you feel like it,” she said. “I've done your work and am keeping your coffee and breakfast warm.”
“Thank you, mother.” Cynthia sat up, her mind battling with both dreams and realities.
“You don't look like you are well,” Mrs. Porter said. “I watched you before you waked up. You are awfully dark under the eyes.”
“I'll feel all right when I am up and stirring around,” Cynthia said, avoiding her mother's close scrutiny. “I tell you I'm not sick.”
When she had dressed herself and gone out into the dining-room she found a delicious breakfast waiting for her, but she scarcely touched the food. The coffee she drank for its stimulating effect, and felt better. All that morning, however, she was the helpless victim of recurring forebodings. When her father came in from the village at noon she hung about him, hoping that he would drop some observation from which she might learn if Floyd had returned, but the quaint old gossip seemed to talk of everything except the subject to which her soul seemed bound.