The story was told and
re-told with little embellishments and often tears; the girls in the
Mill repeated each detail of it over their lunches, the men talked about
it in low tones as they walked homeward.
And Robin's little service had a remarkable effect upon the Mill people.
Tongues that had been most bitter against the House of Forsyth suddenly
wagged loudest in Robin's praise; some boldly foretold the beginning of
a "better day." All felt the stirring of a certain, all-promising belief
that a Forsyth, even though a small one--"cared."
But what was to be the cost, they asked one another, with anxious faces?
Upon hearing that Robin herself was ill, Beryl had rushed to the Manor,
in an agony of fear. Robin mustn't be sick--she couldn't die! It was
too dreadful--She ought never to have gone into Granny Castle's
house--or touched Susy.
Among the books Robin loved so well Beryl waited in a dumb misery for
hours, for some word. Harkness only shook his old head at her and Mrs.
Budge ignored her. Finally, standing the suspense as long as she could
she crept to the stairs and up them and in the hall above encountered a
cherry-faced white-garbed young woman.
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