Again the minister began reading from the book.
"I have become older than all of these people here," thought the youth.
"They play at life and death, and I have felt it between the fingers of my
hand."
Mary Underwood, lacking Sam's unconsciousness of the people, looked about
with burning cheeks. Seeing the women whispering and putting their heads
together, a chill of fear ran through her. Into the room had been thrust
the face of an old enemy to her--the scandal of a small town. Picking up
the note she slipped out at the door and stole away along the street. The
old maternal love for Sam had returned strengthened and ennobled by the
terror through which she had passed with him that night in the rain. Going
to her house she whistled the collie dog and set out along a country road.
At the edge of a grove of trees she stopped, sat down on a log, and read
Telfer's note. From the soft ground into which her feet sank there came
the warm pungent smell of the new growth. Tears came into her eyes. She
thought that in a few days much had come to her. She had got a boy upon
whom she could pour out the mother love in her heart, and she had made a
friend of Telfer, whom she had long regarded with fear and doubt.
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