Mrs. Porter's eyes glowed with interest and surprise at such heat from the reserved New England woman.
"You do feel that way! I'm so glad. Then, why doesn't Linda?"
"Because if Mr. King laid down and died it couldn't bring back her father," returned Miss Barry slowly.
Mrs. Porter looked away and shook her head. "How dreadful it seems," she said in a low tone. "Then you have no blame for Bertram?"
"What is the situation now? What has he been able to do?"
"Wonders," returned Miss Barry sententiously. "He sent me a letter to the train. I ought to have given it to you as soon as I touched home. I ought to have realized that you were so close to Mr. King that it would mean a lot to you as well as to us. You'll never see the Linda that was before that letter came. It gave her new life."
"Then didn't it make her feel kindly toward Bertram?" asked Mrs. Porter.
"No. She just accepted it as penance and the best restitution the poor fellow could make for a tragic and unpardonable--mind you, _unpardonable_ mistake."
"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors," murmured Mrs. Porter.
"I know it," returned Miss Barry; "and you'll see when you read that letter that he has some forgiveness to do himself. He never mentioned Linda in it, and good enough for her. She had flouted him and refused to see him for days before he rightly sensed how deep her feeling was against him. It was at a business meeting we had that she came out flat with her suspicion and meanness. Oh, it was perfectly awful. I just have to remember and _remember_ how much provocation she would have had if all she believed was true. That poor boy nearly fainted away in his tracks, the way she spoke to him."
Mrs. Porter bit her lip. She could picture the scene and her eyes filled.
"Yes, and there's that Fred Whitcomb, too: as nice a boy as ever lived. He just adores Linda; and it seems there's lots of others. I didn't believe before that I could ever get sick of arranging flowers; but really they were a pest. Linda wouldn't look at one, and I got so I passed them over to the waitress. She fixed them perfectly awful, too. They looked like crazy quilts when she got through--such colors together! Linda was a buxom, healthy girl, and good-looking enough, but for the life of me I can't see why she's such a snare."