Tongue-tied and scarlet, Kenny stared into the cabin.  Its single room with its raftered walls, books and a lamp, an old-fashioned stove, a work-basket, a faded rag-carpet and the trophies of childhood, boy and girl, was snug and comfortable.

“It’s Donald’s and mine,” said Joan.  “We’ve always studied here with Mr. Abbott.”

“Mr. O’Neill,” said the minister stiffly, “it—­it has been a sort of secret.  Mr. Craig was strangely opposed to the tuition I offered years ago.  Joan settled the problem for herself.”

It was evident all of it had lain a little sorely on the old man’s conscience.  It had been a singular problem, deception or the welfare of the two children suffering at the hands of Adam Craig; and the need of choice had driven him to prayer.

Kenny, glad at last to find his tongue, warmly commended his decision.

Joan blew out the light and locked the door.

“How did you find the cabin, Kenny?” she asked wonderingly.  “It’s off so in the wilder part of the forest.  No one comes this way.”

Kenny told fluently of walking toward a star.

It was like him.  Joan smiled.

But the faith in her eyes upset him.  He wanted to be truthful.  Ah! if only Fate would let him!

“And I startled you!” marveled Mr. Abbott.

“Yes,” said Kenny.

He walked back through the silence of the pines with remorse in his heart, paying little heed to Mr. Abbott’s talk of vacation.  The wistaria ladder, the cloister of pines, the lonely cabin where Joan spent truant hours of peace, were to him things of infinite pathos.  And like the day in the garret, yesterday seemed aeons back.  He wondered why, conscious of a subtle, unforgettable sense of change in himself.  Something mysteriously had altered.

The memory of the pain and horror in his heart, he dismissed with a frown.  As Adam said, he never dwelt upon the things that failed to please him.  The pain was past.  The peace of the present lay in his heart.  It had even crowded out the memory of Adam and the notebook.

He was glad when Mr. Abbott said good night and took a footpath to the west.  Well, it had been a mystery this time that he hadn’t wanted to keep.  But why, Oh, why, he wondered a little sadly, must all his mysteries end in anticlimax?  Absurd, the little man in his frock coat trotting out of the cabin door!

“Joan, Joan!” he pleaded.  “Why didn’t you tell me?  Am I then not your friend?”

“I’m sorry, Kenny.”  She laid her hand wistfully upon his arm.  “Mr. Abbott asked me not to tell you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“You go there often?”

“Yes, at night.  I sew there and read and study.  To Donald and me it was always a little like a home.  I used to patch his clothes there.  He hated them so.  You’re not hurt?”

“Not—­now.”

“I’m glad.”