"Not grieving, are you?" he asked, seeing how things stood.
"No-o," she replied.
"Come now, sweet. You mustn't feel this way.
It's coming out all right."
He took her in his arms and kissed her, and they strolled down the hall.
He was astonished to see how well she looked in even these simple clothes—the best she had ever had.
They reached the depot after a short carriage ride.
The accommodations had been arranged for before hand, and Kane had allowed just enough time to make the train.
When they settled themselves in a Pullman state-room it was with a keen sense of satisfaction on his part.
Life looked rosy.
Jennie was beside him.
He had succeeded in what he had started out to do.
So might it always be.
As the train rolled out of the depot and the long reaches of the fields succeeded Jennie studied them wistfully.
There were the forests, leafless and bare; the wide, brown fields, wet with the rains of winter; the low farm-houses sitting amid flat stretches of prairie, their low roofs making them look as if they were hugging the ground.
The train roared past little hamlets, with cottages of white and yellow and drab, their roofs blackened by frost and rain.
Jennie noted one in particular which seemed to recall the old neighborhood where they used to live at Columbus; she put her handkerchief to her eyes and began silently to cry.
"I hope you're not crying, are you, Jennie?" said Lester, looking up suddenly from the letter he had been reading.
"Come, come," he went on as he saw a faint tremor shaking her.
"This won't do.
You have to do better than this.
You'll never get along if you act that way."
She made no reply, and the depth of her silent grief filled him with strange sympathies.
"Don't cry," he continued soothingly; "everything will be all right. I told you that.
You needn't worry about anything."
Jennie made a great effort to recover herself, and began to dry her eyes.
"You don't want to give way like that," he continued.
"It doesn't do you any good.
I know how you feel about leaving home, but tears won't help it any.
It isn't as if you were going away for good, you know.
Besides, you'll be going back shortly.
You care for me, don't you, sweet?
I'm something?"
"Yes," she said, and managed to smile back at him.
Lester returned to his correspondence and Jennie fell to thinking of Vesta.
It troubled her to realize that she was keeping this secret from one who was already very dear to her.
She knew that she ought to tell Lester about the child, but she shrank from the painful necessity.
Perhaps later on she might find the courage to do it.
"I'll have to tell him something," she thought with a sudden upwelling of feeling as regarded the seriousness of this duty.
"If I don't do it soon and I should go and live with him and he should find it out he would never forgive me.
He might turn me out, and then where would I go?
I have no home now.
What would I do with Vesta?"
She turned to contemplate him, a premonitory wave of terror sweeping over her, but she only saw that imposing and comfort-loving soul quietly reading his letters, his smoothly shaved red cheek and comfortable head and body looking anything but militant or like an avenging Nemesis.
She was just withdrawing her gaze when he looked up.
"Well, have you washed all your sins away?" he inquired merrily.
She smiled faintly at the allusion. The touch of fact in it made it slightly piquant.
"I expect so," she replied.
He turned to some other topic, while she looked out of the window, the realization that one impulse to tell him had proved unavailing dwelling in her mind.
"I'll have to do it shortly," she thought, and consoled herself with the idea that she would surely find courage before long.