"Oh, you needn't think I didn't notice the start you gave when he spoke, and the angry way you looked at him. You may pretend all you want to, but you can't cheat me. You'd be the very one to make an absurd fuss if you thought I had even so much as looked at anybody else." And then she burst out laughing at the red and pale confusion of his face. "Why, you're the very picture of jealousy at the very mention of the thing. Dear me, what a tyrant you are going to be! I was going to confess a lot of my old flirtations to you, but now I sha'n't dare to. O Henry, how funny my face feels when I laugh, so stiff, as if the muscles were all rusty! I should think I hadn't laughed for a year by the feeling." He scarcely dared leave her when they reached her lodgings, for fear that she might get to thinking and puzzling over the matter, and, possibly, at length might hit upon a clue which, followed up, would lead her back to the grave so recently covered over in her life, and turn her raving mad with the horror of the discovery. As soon as he possibly could, he almost ran back to her lodgings in a panic. She had evidently been thinking matters over. "How came we here in Boston together, Henry? I don't seem to quite understand why I came. I remember you came after me?" "Yes, I came after you." "What was the matter? Was I sick?" "Very sick." "Out of my head?" "Yes." "That's the reason you took me to the doctor, I suppose?" "Yes." "But why isn't mother here with me?" "You--you didn't seem to want her," answered Henry, a cold sweat covering his face under this terrible inquisition. "Yes," said she, slowly, "I do remember your proposing she should come and my not wanting her. I can't imagine why. I must have been out of my head, as you say. Henry," she continued, regarding him with eyes of sudden softness, "you must have been very good to me. Dr. Heidenhoff could never make me forget that."