Sara Lee dressed that evening in the white frock. She dressed slowly,
thinking hard. All round her was the shiny newness of her furniture,
a trifle crowded in Belle's small room. Sara Lee had a terrible feeling
of being fastened in by it. Wherever she turned it gleamed. She felt
surrounded, smothered.
She had meant to make a clean breast of things--of the little house,
and of Henri, and of the King, pinning the medal on her shabby black
jacket and shaking hands with her. Henri she must tell about--not his
name of course, nor his madness, nor even his love. But she felt that
she owed it to Harvey to have as few secrets from him as possible. She
would tell about what the boy had done for her, and how he, and he alone,
had made it all possible.
Surely Harvey would understand. It was a page that was closed. It had
held nothing to hurt him. She had come back.
She stood by her window, thinking. And a breath of wind set the leaves
outside to rustling. Instantly she was back again in the little house,
and the sound was not leaves, but the shuffling of many stealthy feet
on the cobbles of the street at night, that shuffling that was so like
the rustling of leaves in a wood or the murmur of water running over a
stony creek bed.