"We
didn't get that letter, Steve," he finished. "If we only had we--we
would have been less lonely waiting, too."
Steve sat and stared down at his heavy boots.
"I should have known that," he faltered. "I should have known that
there were too many presidents on that island, both coming and going,
for the mails to be infallible. But I wasn't just sure----"
Miss Sarah cut in then and took the conversation serenely in hand.
"We have something else of yours, Stephen," she said in her soft,
almost lisping voice, "something which Caleb brought back with him
which he has neglected to mention."
She left them for a moment, and when she came back downstairs with the
picture of the girl with the steady mouth and eyes her brother breathed
with less difficulty than he had during her absence. For a second or
so he had almost believed that she might have run across that bunch of
loose tax receipts and the folded, legal-looking document which he had
tucked away in his own iron box. Stephen O'Mara sat and looked long
and long at his mother's picture. When he finally raised his head
again Miss Sarah's eyes were misty, too.
"This is one of the things for which I can never thank you enough," he
murmured. "I can only tell you that I didn't know--I didn't
understand----"
Miss Sarah took the gilt-framed picture from his hand. She did not
need his disconnectedly self-conscious explanation to understand.
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