u needn't go, Dicky. I'll get a train. I'm----"

"None of that," said Marston. "Whither thou goest, for the present,
I'll trot. But--Hope Stuart's anxious to--meet you."

"Who's Hope Stuart?"

Dick Marston hesitated, looked embarrassed. "Why--just a girl," he
said. "But an uncommon sort of girl. She's done some--big things.
Cousin of Don Emory's, you know. Came yesterday--just before your
party. She--she's--well, she's different from the ruck of 'em--and
she--said she'd like to meet you. I half promised she could."

McBirney flushed. "I _can't_ see people, Dick," he threw back
nervously. "They're kind--it's decent of them. I suppose, as long as
the boy wasn't killed--" he stopped.

"Geoff, you've got some bizarre idea in your head about this episode,
and I can't fathom it," spoke Dick Marston. "What do you think
happened anyway?" he demanded. And stopped, horrified at the look on
the other's face.

"Dick, you mean to be kind, but you're being cruel--as death,"
whispered Geoffrey McBirney. "I simply--can't bear any
conversation--about that. I've got to cut loose and get off somewhere
and--and--arrange."

His voice broke. Dick Marston's big hand was on his. "Old man," Dick
said, "you're all wrong, but if you won't let me talk about it I
won't--now. Look here--we'll sneak to-morrow. Everybody's going off
in cars for an all-day drive, and I'll start, and pull out half-way on
some excuse, and come back here, and you'll be packed, and we'll get
out. I'll square it with Nanny Emory. She'll understand. I'll tell
her you're crazy in the head, and won't be hero-worshipped."

"Hero-worshipped!" McBirney laughed bitterly to himself when Dick was
gone. These good people, because he was a parson, because the child's
blood, by some accident, was not on his head, were banded to keep his
self-respect for him, to cover over his cowardice with some distorted
theory of courage. Perhaps they did not know, but he knew, about that
last thought of determined egotism, that shout of "I won't! I won't!"
before the car caught him. He knew, and never as long as he lived
could he look the world in the eyes again, with that shame in his soul.
What would _she_ have thought, had she been there to see? She would
not have been deceived; her clear eyes would have seen the truth.

So he felt; so he went over and over the five minutes of the accident
till all covering seemed to be stripped from his strained nerves.