He went along the road and presently passed out of sight, and a
great weakness took possession of her. Although the grass was wet she sat
on the ground against the wall of the building and closed her eyes. Later
she put her face in her hands and wept.
The perplexed inventor did not get back to his boarding house until late
that night, and when he did he was unspeakably glad that he had not knocked
on the door of Rose McCoy's room. He had decided during the walk that
the whole notion that she had wanted him had been born in his own brain.
"She's a nice woman," he had said to himself over and over during the
walk, and thought that in coming to that conclusion he had swept away all
possibilities of anything else in her. He was tired when he got home and
went at once to bed. The old woman came home from the country and her
brother sat in his buggy and shouted to the school teacher, who came out of
her room and ran down the stairs. He heard the two women carry something
heavy into the house and drop it on the floor. The farmer brother had given
Mrs. McCoy a bag of potatoes. Hugh thought of the mother and daughter
standing together downstairs and was unspeakably glad he had not given way
to his impulse toward boldness. "She would be telling her now. She is a
good woman and would be telling her now," he thought.
At two o'clock that night Hugh got out of bed. In spite of the conviction
that women were not for him, he had found himself unable to sleep.
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