Mary repeated the excuse she had given Mr. Hamilton.  It was sufficient.  The partners were too happy at having her with them to be overcurious concerning her reasons for coming.  Captain Shad talked and joked and laughed and Zoeth nodded and smiled in his quiet way.  If Mary had not known their secret she would not have guessed it but, as it was, she noticed how pale and worn Mr. Hamilton looked and how the Captain had become prone to fits of unwonted silence from which he seemed to arouse himself with an effort and, after a glance at her, to talk and laugh louder than ever, Once she ventured to ask how business was and it would have been almost funny if it had not been so pathetic, the haste with which they both assured her that it was about the same.

After dinner she announced her intention of going up to the store.  Her uncles exchanged looks and then Zoeth said: 

“What makes you do that, Mary-’Gusta?  Nice day like this I’d be out of door if I was you.  We don’t need you at the store, do we, Shadrach?”

“Not more’n a fish needs a bathin’ suit,” declared the Captain, with conviction.  “You go see some of the girls and have a good time, Mary-’Gusta.”

But Mary declined to go and see any of the girls.  She could have a better time at the store than anywhere else, she said.  She went to the store and spent the afternoon and evening there, watching and listening.  There was not much to watch, not more than a dozen customers during the entire time, and those bought but little.  The hardest part of the experience for her was to see how eager her uncles were to please each caller and how anxiously each watched the other’s efforts and the result.  To see Zoeth at the desk poring over the ledger, his lips moving and the pencil trembling in his fingers, was as bad as, but no worse than, to see Captain Shadrach, a frown on his face and his hands in his pockets, pace the floor from the back door to the front window, stop, look up the road, draw a long breath that was almost a groan, then turn and stride back again.

At six o’clock Mary, who had reasons of her own for wishing to be left alone in the store, suggested that she remain there while her uncles went home for supper.  Neither Mr. Hamilton nor the Captain would consent, so she was obliged to go to the house herself and send Isaiah up once more to act as shopkeeper.  But at eleven that night, after unmistakable sounds from their rooms were furnishing proofs that both partners of Hamilton and Company were asleep, she tiptoed downstairs, put on her coat and hat, took the store keys from the nail where Zoeth always hung them, and went out.  She did not return until almost three.