“Oh, Sister Porter, what is it? Don't keep me waiting. I knew you were in some trouble when I saw your face as you came in at the gate. Is it about--” “Of course it's about Cynthia,” sighed the woman--“about her and Nelson Floyd.” “He's dead, and she--” Hillhouse began, but Mrs. Porter stopped him. “No, that isn't it,” she went on. “He's alive. He's back here.” “Oh, is that so?” Hillhouse leaned forward, his face white, his thin lips quivering. “Yes, I'll tell you about it,” went on Mrs. Porter. “Of late I've been unable to sleep for thinking of Cynthia and her actions, she's seemed so reckless and despondent, and last night I left my bed and started to creep in and see if she was asleep. I had on soft slippers and made no noise, and had just got to the end of the hall, when her door opened and she went out at the front.” “Gone? Oh, don't--don't tell me that, Mrs. Porter!” “No, not that, quite; but wait till I am through,” Mrs. Porter said, her tone hard and crisp. “When I got to the porch I saw her just disappearing in the orchard. And then I heard somebody whistling like a whippoorwill. It was Nelson Floyd. He was standing at the grape-arbor, and the two met there. They went inside and sat down, and then, as there was a thick row of rose-bushes between the house and the arbor, I slipped up behind it. I crouched down low till I was almost flat on the ground. I heard every word that passed between them.” Hillhouse said nothing. The veins in his forehead stood out full and dark. Drops of perspiration, the dew of mental agony, appeared on his cheeks. “Don't form hasty judgment,” Mrs. Porter said. “If I ever doubted, or feared my child's weakness on that man's account, I don't now. She's as good and pure as the day she was born. In fact, I don't believe she would have gone out to meet him that way if she hadn't been nearly crazy over the uncertainty as to what had happened to him. I don't blame her; I'd have done it myself if I'd cared as much for a man as she does about him--or thinks she does.” “You say you heard what passed?” Hillhouse panted.