When Captain Zelotes did return to the office, Issachar was industriously sweeping out, Albert was hard at work at the books, and Laban was still rubbing his chin and smiling at nothing in particular.
The next day Albert and Issachar made it up. Albert apologized.
"I"m sorry, Issy," he said. "I shouldn"t have done it, but you made me mad. I have a--rather mean temper, I"m afraid. Forgive me, will you?"
He held out his hand, and Issachar, after a momentary hesitation, took it.
"I forgive you this time, Al," he said solemnly, "but don"t never do nothin" like it again, will ye? When I went home for dinner yesterday noon I give you my word my clothes was kind of dampish even then. If it hadn"t been nice warm sunshine and I was out doors and dried off considerable I"d a had to change everything, underclothes and all, and "tain"t but the middle of the week yet."
His ducking had an effect which Albert noticed with considerable satisfaction--he was never quite as flippantly personal in his comments concerning the a.s.sistant bookkeeper. He treated the latter, if not with respect, at least with something distantly akin to it.
After Madeline"s departure the world was very lonely indeed. Albert wrote long, long letters and received replies which varied in length but never in devotion. Miss Fosd.i.c.k was obliged to be cautious in her correspondence with her lover. "You will forgive me if this is not much more than a note, won"t you, dear?" she wrote. "Mother seems to be very curious of late about my letters and to whom I write and I had to just steal the opportunity this morning." An older and more apprehensive person might have found Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k"s sudden interest in her daughter"s correspondence suspicious and a trifle alarming, but Albert never dreamed of being alarmed.
He wrote many poems, all dealing with love and lovers, and sold some of them. He wrote no more letters to Helen. She, too, had ceased to write him, doubtless because of the lack of reply to her last two or three letters. His conscience still troubled him about Helen; he could not help feeling that his treatment of her had not been exactly honorable.
Yet what else under the circ.u.mstances could he do? From Mr. Kendall he learned that she was coming home to spend Thanksgiving. He would see her then. She would ask him questions? What should his answer be? He faced the situation in antic.i.p.ation many, many times, usually after he had gone to bed at night, and lay awake through long torturing hours in consequence.
But when at last Helen and he did meet, the day before Thanksgiving, their meeting was not at all the dreadful ordeal he had feared. Her greeting was as frank and cordial as it had always been, and there was no reproach in her tone or manner. She did not even ask him why he had stopped writing. It was he, himself, who referred to that subject, and he did so as they walked together down the main road. Just why he referred to it he could not probably have told. He was aware only that he felt mean and contemptible and that he must offer some explanation.
His not having any to offer made the task rather difficult.
But she saved him the trouble. She interrupted one of his blundering, stumbling sentences in the middle.
"Never mind, Albert," she said quietly. "You needn"t explain. I think I understand."
He stopped and stared at her. "You understand?" he repeated. "Why--why, no, you don"t. You can"t."
"Yes, I can, or I think I can. You have changed your mind, that is all."
"Changed my mind?"
"Yes. Don"t you remember I told you you would change your mind about--well, about me? You were so sure you cared so very, very much for me, you know. And I said you mustn"t promise anything because I thought you would change your mind. And you have. That is it, isn"t it? You have found some one else."
He gazed at her as if she were a witch who had performed a miracle.
"Why--why--well, by George!" he exclaimed. "Helen--how--how did you know? Who told you?"
"No one told me. But I think I can even guess who it is you have found.
It is Madeline Fosd.i.c.k, isn"t it?"
His amazement now was so open-mouthed as well as open-eyed that she could not help smiling.
"Don"t! Don"t stare at me like that," she whispered. "Every one is looking at you. There is old Captain Pease on the other side of the street; I"m sure he thinks you have had a stroke or something. Here!
Walk down our road a little way toward home with me. We can talk as we walk. I"m sure," she added, with just the least bit of change in her tone, "that your Madeline won"t object to our being together to that extent."
She led the way down the side street toward the parsonage and he followed her. He was still speechless from surprise.
"Well," she went on, after a moment, "aren"t you going to say anything?"
"But--but, Helen," he faltered, "how did you know?"
She smiled again. "Then it IS Madeline," she said. "I thought it must be."
"You--you thought--What made you think so?"
For an instant she seemed on the point of losing her patience.
Then she turned and laid her hand on his arm.
"Oh, Al," she said, "please don"t think I am altogether an idiot.
I surmised when your letters began to grow shorter and--well, different--that there was something or some one who was changing them, and I suspected it was some one. When you stopped writing altogether, I KNEW there must be. Then father wrote in his letters about you and about meeting you, and so often Madeline Fosd.i.c.k was wherever he met you. So I guessed--and, you see, I guessed right."
He seized her hand.
"Oh, Helen," he cried, "if you only knew how mean I have felt and how ashamed I am of the way I have treated you! But, you see, I--I COULDN"T write you and tell you because we had agreed to keep it a secret. I couldn"t tell ANY ONE."
"Oh, it is as serious as that! Are you two really and truly engaged?"
"Yes. There! I"ve told it, and I swore I would never tell."
"No, no, you didn"t tell. I guessed. Now tell me all about her. She is very lovely. Is she as sweet as she looks?"
He rhapsodized for five minutes. Then all at once he realized what he was saying and to whom he was saying it. He stopped, stammering, in the very middle of a glowing eulogium.
"Go on," said Helen rea.s.suringly. But he could not go on, under the circ.u.mstances. Instead he turned very red. As usual, she divined his thought, noticed his confusion, and took pity on it.
"She must be awfully nice," she said. "I don"t wonder you fell in love with her. I wish I might know her better."
"I wish you might. By and by you must. And she must know you. Helen, I--I feel so ashamed of--of--"
"Hush, or I shall begin to think you are ashamed because you liked me--or thought you did."
"But I do like you. Next to Madeline there is no one I like so much.
But, but, you see, it is different."
"Of course it is. And it ought to be. Does her mother--do her people know of the engagement?"
He hesitated momentarily. "No-o," he admitted, "they don"t yet. She and I have decided to keep it a secret from any one for the present. I want to get on a little further with my writing, you know. She is like you in that, Helen--she"s awfully fond of poetry and literature."
"Especially yours, I"m sure. Tell me about your writing. How are you getting on?"
So he told her and, until they stood together at the parsonage gate, Madeline"s name was not again mentioned. Then Helen put out her hand.
"Good morning, Albert," she said. "I"m glad we have had this talk, ever so glad."
"By George, so am I! You"re a corking friend, Helen. The chap who does marry you will be awfully lucky."
She smiled slightly. "Perhaps there won"t be any such chap," she said.
"I shall always be a schoolmarm, I imagine."