midday
`` He just was n't quite frank ; that was all . '' ... Oh , she had been wicked to suspect him ! `` He would never forgive me if he knew I had thought of such a thing , He must never know it . '' In the comfort of her own remorse , and the reassurance of his half frankness , she walked back to the station and waited , in the midday heat , for the returning car . Her head had begun to ache , but she said to herself that she must not disappoint little Donny . So she went , in the blazing sun , to the old washerwoman 's house , climbed three flights of stairs , and found the boy in bed , flushed with worry for fear `` Miss Eleanor '' was n't coming . She took the little feeble body in her arms , and sat down in the steamy kitchen by an open window , where Donny could see , on the clothes lines that stretched like gigantic spiderwebs across a narrow courtyard , shirts and drawers , flapping and kicking and bellying in the high , hot wind .