She began
to talk of the dead woman lying in the upstairs room in the town. "We
have been friends since you went away," she explained. "She liked to
talk of you and I liked that too."
Made bold by her own boldness the woman hurried on. "I do not want you
to misunderstand me," she said. "I know I can't get you. I'm not
thinking of that."
She began to talk of her own affairs and of the dreariness of life
with her father but McGregor's mind could not centre itself on her
talk. When they started down the hill he had the impulse to take her
in his arms and carry her as Cracked McGregor had once carried him but
was so embarrassed that he did not offer to help her. He thought that
for the first time some one from his native town had come close to him
and he watched her stooped figure with an odd new feeling of
tenderness. "I won't be alive long, maybe not a year. I've got the
consumption," she whispered softly as he left her at the entrance to
the hallway leading up to her home, and McGregor was so stirred by her
words that he turned back and spent another hour wandering alone on
the hillside before he went to see the body of his mother.
* * * * *
In the room above the bakery McGregor sat at an open window and looked
down into the dimly lighted street.
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