Page:Steadfast Heart.djvu/190

 me how it was you came back to Rainbow? How did you know I was sick? Who told you?”

Angus did not know how to evade questions; indeed it was an art he never learned. His methods were always direct. Now he kept silence.

“I never could figure it out,” said Dave. “Nobody knew where you were but the Brownings and Mr. Woodhouse, and neither of them sent for you.”

“No,” said Angus.

“Who did, then?”

“It was—somebody else.”

Dave wrinkled his nose, as was his custom in moments of perplexity…. He began to understand dimly that something—some incomprehensible scruple—was holding the boy silent.

“Is it a secret?” he asked.

“Nobody said I shouldn’t tell.”

“I see…. Then, of course, you mustn’t tell. I shouldn’t have asked.”

At that instant Lydia Canfield, who had been reading quietly in the next room, hurled her book to the floor and rushed through the portières flushed, eyes snapping, in a rage.

“I did it,” she cried, “I did it…. So there! And I’d do it again.”

"Well…. We-ll….” said Dave.