The end of it was that he went away in
a sort of tremor, wearing her rain-cloak over his shoulders, which
garment, as it covered its owner completely when she wore it, hung almost
to his knees. He darted around a corner; and there, breathing deeply,
tenderly removed it; then, borrowing paper and cord at a neighboring
store, wrapped it neatly, and stole back to the printing-office on the
ground floor of the "Herald" building, and left the package in charge of
Bud Tipworthy, mysteriously charging him to care for it as for his own
life, and not to open it, but if the lady so much as set one foot out of
doors before his return, to hand it to her with the message: "He borrowed
another off J. Hankins."
Left alone, the lady went to the desk and stood for a time looking gravely
at Harkless's chair. She touched it gently, as she had touched it once
before that morning, and then she spoke to it as if he were sitting there,
and as she would not have spoken, had he been sitting there.
"You didn't want gratitude, did you?" she whispered, with sad lips.
Soon she smiled at the blue ribbons, patted the chair gaily on the back,
and, seizing upon pencil and pad, dashed into her work with rare energy.
She bent low over the desk, her pencil moving rapidly, and, except for a
momentary interruption from Mr. Tipworthy, she seemed not to pause for
breath; certainly her pencil did not.
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