A reaction set in after the party, Miss Milly, over-fatigued, had had to stay in her room. Happy House, itself, fell back into its old ways; again the blinds were shut, the flower vases disappeared and the peacock feathers were returned to their places of honor. B'lindy developed rheumatism.
Too, a week followed of long hot days and stifling nights, "brewin' up for somethin'," B'lindy declared.
Nancy, her play finished, suffered from a restlessness she had never known before. She told herself that, now her work was done, she must not linger at Happy House; then found that she could not bear to face the thought of going! These ties that she had made bound her closely. It was not as though she might come back as they would think she could—the separation must be forever. And the day must come when these good people she had grown to love would know that she had deceived and cheated them!
"That is my punishment," she thought, in real distress.
On the morning of a day that differed only from the other cloudless days in that the sky was bluer and the sun hotter, Jonathan brought Nancy a letter from Mrs. Finnegan. Enclosed in it was a cable from her father telling her that he had booked passage on the Tourraine, leaving Le Havre within two days.
"Oh," Nancy cried aloud, "he is coming home!"
So intent was she upon her letter that she did not see the rapid approach of a shiny Ford; but at a terrific whirring and grating of wheels and levers she turned, startled.
"Love letter?" queried Peter Hyde, jumping from the driver's seat.
"How you frightened me! And why this magnificence? No, it is not a love-letter!" Nancy laughed joyously as she tucked it away in her pocket. Oh, why couldn't she tell Peter Hyde that it was word that her dearest father was at that moment sailing home to her! (Nancy could not know that the letter had lain in Tim Finnegan's pocket for five whole days.)
"This——" and Peter Hyde caressed his new possession, "is the latest tool at Judson's. You have no idea how many things it can do—'most everything except milk the cows. To-day I thought, if Miss Nancy Leavitt was willing, it might take us on a picnic—say, up to Isle La Motte. I'm beastly tired of work!"