(although there would be ordeals, inquiries, suspicion of manslaughter—before they could get her altogether free.) Dick Bartee was dead and gone. So they'd got Nan back north, and into the strong hands of Johnny's mother. Barbara Sims had pumped courage into her, helped her, got her in some measure, together again.
Now, of course, this was going to be an ordeal.
Johnny helped her to walk. Dorothy walked by herself. It was Dorothy who had stayed behind, two days, in Hestia and stood up to all the questioning.
Father Klein welcomed them. 'He is waiting, my dear. He has been waiting for this a very long time.'
McCauIey was better. The resolution of the dilemma had put him back together again, rather swiftly. He'd be out on parole soon.
'We won't go in,' said Johrmy. 'You go, Nan.'
'No, Johnny, Dotty, please? Come with me?' Nan was shivering.
'He wants to see all three of you,' the chaplain said.
The frail little man was waiting in the chaplain's office, white head bent down.
McCauley said, 'I am a little afraid. Is it really she?'
Nan's face began to change. 'Don't be afraid,' she said. 'Father?'
'This is your daughter, sir. And this is her cousin, Dorothy,' Johnny spoke up. He had to be very cheerful, loud, and hearty. Somebody had to be.
'Thank you for all you have done,' McCauley's brovvn eyes sent up to him a look of piercing gratitude.
'Thank Dorothy, too.'
'I do thank Dorothy.'
Dorothy said, w^ith that sturdy sweetness, 'Ym. glad to meet you at last, Uncle CHnton.'
'That's right,' he mused. 'You are Essie McCauley and Gordon O'Hara's child.'
Nan's face had color. 'I am Polly McCauley,' she said shyly.
The man looked at her directly for the first time. 'Oh, my poor Polly McCauley. My dear little one.' The heart seemed to rush out of the frail body toward her. 'What a terrible bad time you must have hadl'
Nan was very still. Everyone was still.
Then Nan said, 'You've had the bad time. Oh, tell me.'' She sat down. She put out her hands. 'What shall I call you? Father? Dad? ITL take care of you now, and .yi?ull help me?'
She had said the exact right thing. McCauley wept for joy.
Johnny touched Dorothy's arm. They slipped away. They went out into the air. They stpod, leaning against a little parapet. They wept for McCauley, and neither let the other see.
After a while Dorothy sighed, 'I'm glad I am Miss O'Hara-Padgett. I thought I might have to . . .'
'Hire an experienced snooper?' Johnny watched a gull. The gull was free.
Dorothy didn't answer.
'Dot, do you know what color a ceanothus petal is?''
'I . . .' She looked started. 'Blue,' she said.
Johnny leaned and saw the world fresh and beautiful and steady. Dorothy fidgeted.
'They'll be all right, I suppose?' she blurted. 'Sure. All right now.'
'Johnny, they won't. He is not of tliis world and Nan's going to be utter devotion or something impractical. Somebody will have to look after them.'
'Not me,' said Johnny. 'No?' Dorothy was surprised.
''Well, not excessively. I've figured it out—vi^atching over people/' Johnny told her, rather harshly. 'Keeping secrets to 'protect' them. Look at the whole list. George Rush protected Dick. Why? To protect himself from being expelled. Blanche protected Dick. Why? To protect herself from punishment, for disobedience and for burglarizing. Old Mrs. Bartee protected Nathaniel from being thrown out on the world. Why? For love, maybe. And that was wrong, too. All of them wrong. Because Rush wasn't innocent, Blanche wasn't innocent, Nathaniel wasn't innocent and Dick Bartee, Lord knows, wasn't innocent. Only one person protected someone rightfully. That was Emily. She protected the truly innocent—the httle baby. Everyone else should have faced the consequences of what he himself had done. OtheiAvise, it's no good. It's not even kind.' 'I know,' said Dorothy.
'I should have given Nan the whole truth as soon as I knew it.'
'Me, too,' said Dorothy softly. 'But we didn't. And now it isn't her fault, really, that she never learned. She . . . Johimy, it won't be easy for her for a long time.'
'Wnbo says,' drawled Johnny, 'that things have got to be easy? That is a dream.' Dorothy sighed.
'You know what's a better dream? To want the truth, have the truth and take the truth, and learn and be . . .' 'Yes,' said Dorothy, 'that's a better dream, all right.' 'I want to tell you something true,' said Johnny abi-uptly. 'When I got my aims around you in that closet and felt your heart beating . . .' His ovsti heart stopped, for the memory.
'Bart said he thought . . .' Dorothy was a bit breathless. 'He thought you wanted to fool Dick for a little while. When he told me about that blue-eyed bluff, he guessed you wanted to try another. Johnny, did it help, that Dick thought he had killed me?'
