He was cold and hungry, worn with sleeplessness, shaken with the memory of the terrible voice that had cried in the mist, and this unexpected kindness was too much for him. He had not meant to do it—did not know that he ever could do such a thing—but he burst into the sobs of a broken man, and when Sam had led him to a chair he dropped his head on the table and wept.
They talked together, the four of them, when Mr. Disbrow had grown calmer. Azalea would have left them, but Annie Laurie wanted her to stay. She held her hand and kept her close beside her.
“You understand everything, Azalea,” she whispered. “You don’t seem surprised at good times or at bad times, dear. You take things as they come. Stay with me, Azalea, I need you very much.”
“What will you do, miss?” Disbrow had asked. “Will you let the people know how you got your money back?”
“Don’t you think they have been suspecting you, Mr. Disbrow?” she asked.
“There wa’n’t a man in town would shake hands with me,” he confessed.
“And don’t you think,” went on the girl, “that they thought it fine of Sam to give up his school and to come back here and help out the aunts and myself?”
“They must have thought he was trying to give a square deal,” said Disbrow.
“Well, then,” Annie Laurie went on, holding tight to Azalea’s hand to gather courage, “I think I ought to tell them. It will let them know you were honest in your heart after all, and it will make them give Sam credit for what he’s done. I’m sure that’s the right way, Mr. Disbrow. When I was naughty I used to like to be punished—it made me feel fair and honest again. And you’ll feel better if the neighbors know. That will be your punishment. And what’s more, it will explain everything. I don’t want to have to tell a lie when I say how I got my money back. I never yet told a lie and I don’t want to begin now.”
The man bowed his head and sat staring into the fire.
“I reckon what you say is right,” he admitted.
Azalea had placed a heaping plate of food before him. She made hot coffee and urged him to drink it. And she found a pouch of tobacco and forced that on him. His clothes had dried before the hearty fire, and when he had lighted his pipe he began to feel master of himself again.