an make me happy, Dicky."

Then he felt the world whirl about him, and it seemed to him as he
answered that his voice came from a long distance.

"If you'll marry me, Eve, I'll stay."

It was the knightly thing to do, and the necessary thing. Yet as they
swept on through the night, his mother's face, all the joy struck from
it, seemed to stare at him out of the darkness.

CHAPTER XIII

_In Which Geoffrey Plays Cave Man._

MINE OWN UNCLE:

I don't know whether to begin at the beginning or at the end of what I
have to tell you. And even now as I think back over the events of the
last twenty-four hours I feel that I must have dreamed them, and that I
will wake and find that nothing has really happened.

But something has happened, and "of a strangeness" which makes it seem to
belong to some of those queer old dime "thrillers" which you never wanted
me to read.

Last night Geoffrey Fox asked me to go out with him on the river. I don't
often go at night, yet as there was a moon, it seemed as if I might.

We went in Brinsley Tyson's motor boat. It is big and roomy and is
equipped with everything to make one comfortable for extended trips. I
wondered a little that Geoffrey should take it, for he has a little boat
of his own, but he said that Mr. Tyson had offered it, and they had been
out in it all day.

Well, it was lovely on the water; I was feeling tired and as blue as
blue--some day I may tell you about _that_, Uncle Rod, and I was glad of
the quiet and beauty of it all; and of late Geoffrey and I have been such
good friends.

Can't you ever really know people, Uncle Rod, or am I so dull and stupid
that I misunderstand? Men are such a puzzle--all except you, you darling
dear--and if you were young and not my uncle, even you might be as much
of a puzzle as the rest.

Well, I would never have believed it of Geoffrey Fox, and even now I
can't really feel that he was responsible. But it isn't what I think but
what you will think that is important--for I have, somehow, ceased to
believe in myself.

It was when we reached the second bridge that I told Geoffrey that we
must turn back. We had, even then, gone farther than I had intended. But
as we started up-stream, I felt that we would get to Bower's before Peter
went back on the bridge, which is always the signal for the house to
close, although it is never really closed; but the lights are turned down
and the family go to bed, and I have always known t