"Your head's pretty heavy," said David patiently; "and hot."
At that she lifted herself up, and tried to smile; "Come, dear
precious, come up-stairs. Never mind if people scold me. I--deserve
it."
"Do you?" said David. "Why?"
He was wide awake by this time, and pleaded against bed. "Tell me why,
on the porch; I don't mind sitting on your lap out there," he bribed
her; "though you are pretty hot to sit on," he added, truthfully.
She could not resist him; to have him on her knee, his tousled head on
her breast, was an inexpressible comfort, "When I go travelling with Dr. Lavendar," David announced drowsily, "I
am going to put my trousers into the tops of my boots, like George
does. Does God drink out of that Dipper?"
Her doubtful murmur seemed to satisfy him; he shut his eyes, nuzzling
his head into her breast, and as she leaned her cheek on his hair--
which he permitted because he was too sleepy to protest--the ache of
sobs lessened in her throat. After a while, when he was sound asleep
again, she carried him up-stairs and laid him in his bed, sitting
beside him for a while lest he should awake. Then she went down to the
porch and faced the situation....
Sometimes she got up and walked about; sometimes sat down, her elbows
on her knees, her forehead in her hands, one foot tapping, tapping,
tapping. Her first idea was flight: she must not wait for Lloyd; she
must take David and go at once. By to-morrow, everybody would know.
She would write Lloyd that she would await him in Philadelphia. "I
will go to a hotel" she told herself. Of course, it was possible that
Sam would keep his knowledge to himself, as his grandfather had done,
but it was not probable. And even if he did, his knowledge made the
place absolutely unendurable to her; she could not bear it for a day--
for an hour! Yes; she must get off by tomorrow night; and-Suddenly, into the midst of this horrible personal alarm, came, like
an echo, Sam's last words. The memory of them was so clear that it was
almost as if he uttered them aloud at her side: "Well; I have had
enough of it." Enough of what? Of loving her? Ah, yes; he was cured
now of all that. But was that what he meant? "So this is life.... I
have had enough of it."
Helena Richie leaped to her feet. It seemed to her as if all her blood
was flowing slowly back to her heart. There was no pain now in those
nail-marks; there was no pain in her crushed humiliation. "I have
had enough of it."...