"It--it looks almost like
Lida Harvey."
"My mother," I said simply.
"Have you seen her lately?"
"My mother?" I asked, startled.
"No, Lida."
"I saw her a few days ago."
"Here?"
"Yes. She came here, Mr. Howell, two weeks ago. She looks badly--as if
she is worrying."
"Not--about me?" he asked eagerly.
"Yes, about you. What possessed you to go away as you did? When
my--bro--when her uncle accused you of something, you ran away,
instead of facing things like a man."
"I was trying to find the one person who could clear me, Mrs. Pitman."
He sat back, with his eyes closed; he looked ill enough to be in bed.
"And you succeeded?"
"No."
I thought perhaps he had not been eating and I offered him food, as
I had once before. But he refused it, with the ghost of his boyish
smile.
"I'm hungry, but it's not food I want. I want to see _her_," he said.
I sat down across from him and tried to mend a table-cloth, but I
could not sew. I kept seeing those two young things, each sick for
a sight of the other, and, from wishing they could have a minute
together, I got to planning it for them.
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