“We’d better start back,” she said. “It will be getting dark.” For a long time they walked side by side in silence--an odd silence in which they seemed to be talking to each other all the while. It was Mary who actually spoke. “But you don’t mean to go on forever in the Mills? Have you thought what you want to do?” Again he waited for a long time before answering her. It must have seemed to Mary that he was being shy and cautious with her, that despite the pouring out of his story, there was still a great deal that he had kept hidden away. He had the air of a man who was afraid of confidences. At last he said, “I don’t know whether I ought to speak of it, but I do know what I want to do. It sounds ridiculous, but what I want to do is ... is ... paint.” He blurted it out as if it required an immense effort, as if he were confessing a sin. “Pictures?” asked Mary. “Do you know anything about it?” “No ... not very much. I’ve always wanted to, in a way. A long time ago, when I was a boy, I used to spend all my time drawing things.” His voice fell a little. “But as I grew older, it seemed foolish ... and the other thing came up ... and I did that instead. You see, I’ve been drawing a bit lately. I’ve been drawing in the Flats--the engines and cranes and chimneys. They always ... well, they fascinated me as far back as I can remember.” When she did not answer, he said, “You remember ... I used to draw when I was a kid....” For a time she considered this sudden, fantastic outburst, and presently she said, “Yes, I remember. I still have the picture you made of Willie, the pony ... and the tree-house....” And then after another pause. “Have you thought about a teacher?” “No ... but ... don’t think I’m conceited, Mary ... I don’t want a teacher. I want to work it out for myself. I’ve got an idea.” She asked him if she might see some of the drawings. “I haven’t shown them to any one,” he said. “I don’t want to yet ... because they aren’t good enough. When I do a good one ... the kind I know is right and what I meant it to be, I’ll give it to you.” His secret, he realized suddenly, was out--the secret he had meant to tell no one, because he was in a strange way ashamed of it. It seemed so silly for any one in the Town to think of painting. The odd, practical streak in Mary asserted itself. “Have you got paints? You can’t get them here in the Town.” “No ... I haven’t needed them. But I’ll want them soon. I want to begin soon.” “I’m going to Cleveland on Monday,” she said. “I’ll get them there ... everything you need. You’d never find them here.” And then, since he had let escape his secret, he told her again of the morning by the lake at Megambo, and the sudden, fierce desire to put down what he saw in the procession of black women carrying water to the young plantations. He tried to tell her how in a way it had given him a queer sense of religious ecstasy.