The wail she had earlier controlled poured forth from her open mouth now, with a grief so sharp it shocked her to silence almost as soon as it began. After a moment when her body rocked and she had to catch her balance, she could say, “Leon’s heart will be broken.”

“There,” Felix said, forgiving her for puzzling him, and hugging her lightly now that he thought he knew the tenor of her thoughts. “He’ll get used to the idea. He’ll soon see it’s the right thing for Floyd to have done. He wasn’t sneaking away, you know, by not telling everybody first; he just didn’t want to have to argue about it. I saw that, and so should you, knowing Floyd as you must have.” His head jerked toward the cabin. “It’s them I worry about. He was the sunrise for Ezra.”

Sarah’s tears came then, but quietly, and so she found, if not comfort, at least a release.

Felix said, “Lovey was not surprised. She’s the one who will make Ezra see.”

“Should we send Pauline to them?” Sarah said a moment later.

Felix shook his head without making a comment. “Do you want to tell Leon?” As they looked at each other, the sound came over the grounds from the house of the bell for breakfast. “Let’s go to breakfast now and bide our time. When they’ve eaten, I’ll tell everyone at once. Will you allow me?—since I was, if not instrumental in his going, at least in full and sympathetic knowledge of it.”

Sarah had got herself in better control. “Yes. Do it just as you say, only without me, please. I am not myself this morning. I had told Leon before I came out, and he said he would be at breakfast and explain that I would not be coming.” She urged him with her eyes toward the house.

“Are you all right now?”

She nodded her head rapidly in a way he had never seen her do before, plainly telling him she was not all right, that she was even on the point of hysteria. “Yes,” he said for her falsely, seeing that she wanted him to leave her.

“Do let Leon have his breakfast first!” she called after him. He did not turn, or pause in his going, only nodded his head up and down.

She did not walk in the direction he had taken, because she did not want to have to put on her manners. Her manners were not usually put on, but this morning they would have to be, if they were required, so it was best, she thought, to keep out of everyone’s way.