Leighton did not answer for a moment.  Finally he said: 

“Because it’s the one thing you hadn’t a right to keep to yourself.  I’m glad you saw that.  Always start square with a woman.  If you do,—­afterward,—­she’ll forgive you anything.”

Lewis went to bed with the puzzled look still on his face.  It was not because he had seen anything that he had told of Folly.  He had told of her simply as a part of chronology—­something that couldn’t be skipped without leaving a gap.  Now he wondered, if he had had time to think, would he have told?  He had scarcely put the question to himself when sleep blotted out thought.

On the next day Leighton had the bays hitched to what was left of the carryall, and with Silas and Lewis drove over to Aunt Jed’s to pay his respects to Mrs. Leighton.  Natalie and Lew went off for a ramble in the hills.  Mammy bustled about her kitchen dreaming out a dream of an early dinner for the company, and murmuring instructions to Ephy, a pale little slip of a woman whom the household, seeking to help, had installed as helper.  Mrs. Leighton stayed with Leighton out under the elms.  They talked little, but they said much.

It was still early in the day when Leighton said: 

“I shall call you Ann.  You must call me Glen.”

“Of course,” answered Mrs. Leighton, and then wondered why it was “of course.”  “I suppose,” she said aloud, “it’s ‘of course’ because of Lew.  I feel as though I were sitting here years ahead, talking to Lew when his head will be turning gray.”

“Don’t!” cried Leighton.  “Don’t say that!  Lew travels a different road.”

Mrs. Leighton looked up, surprised at his tone.

“Perhaps you don’t see what we can see.  Perhaps you don’t know what you have done for Lew.”

“I have done nothing for Lew,” said Leighton, quickly.  “If anything has been done for Lew, it was done in the years when I was far from him in body, in mind, and in spirit.  Lew would have been himself without me.  It is doubtful whether he would have been himself without you.  I—­I don’t forget that.”

CHAPTER XLVI

At four o’clock Leighton sent for Silas.

“Take the team home, Silas,” he said.  “We’re going to walk.  Come along, Lew.”

“It’s awfully early, Dad,” said Lew, with a protesting glance at the high sun.

“The next to the last thing a man learns in social finesse,” said Leighton, “and the very last rule that reaches the brain of woman, is to say good-by while it’s still a shock to one’s hosts.”

“And it’s still a shock to-day,” said Mrs. Leighton, smiling.  “But you mustn’t quarrel with what your father’s said, Lew,” she added.  “He’s given you the key to the heart of ‘Come again!’”

“As if Lew would ever need that!” cried Natalie.

Soon after leaving the house, Leighton struck off to the right and up.  His step was not springy.  His head hung low on his breast, and his fingers gripped nervously at the light stick he carried.  He did not speak, and Lewis knew enough not to break that silence.  They crossed a field, Leighton walking slightly ahead.  He did not have to look up to lead the way.