her waist, in spite of her missing hat and the small gold bag
that hung forlornly from a broken chain, looked exceedingly lovely.

"Then I won't leave you alone," I said manfully, and we stumbled on
together. Thus far we had seen nobody from the wreck, but well up the
lane we came across the tall dark woman who had occupied lower eleven.
She was half crouching beside the road, her black hair about her
shoulders, and an ugly bruise over her eye. She did not seem to know
us, and refused to accompany us. We left her there at last, babbling
incoherently and rolling in her hands a dozen pebbles she had gathered
in the road.

The girl shuddered as we went on. Once she turned and glanced at my
bandage. "Does it hurt very much?" she asked.

"It's growing rather numb. But it might be worse," I answered
mendaciously. If anything in this world could be worse, I had never
experienced it.

And so we trudged on bareheaded under the summer sun, growing parched
and dusty and weary, doggedly leaving behind us the pillar of smoke.
I thought I knew of a trolley line somewhere in the direction we
were going, or perhaps we could find a horse and trap to take us into
Baltimore. The girl smiled when I suggested it.

"We will create a sensation, won't we?" she asked. "Isn't it queer--or
perhaps it's my state of mind--but I keep wishing for a pair of gloves,
when I haven't even a hat!"

When we reached the main road we sat down for a moment, and her hair,
which had been coming loose for some time, fell over her shoulders in
little waves that were most alluring. It seemed a pity to twist it
up again, but when I suggested this, cautiously, she said it was
troublesome and got in her eyes when it was loose. So she gathered it
up, while I held a row of little shell combs and pins, and when it was
done it was vastly becoming, too. Funny about hair: a man never knows
he has it until he begins to lose it, but it's different with a girl.
Something of the unconventional situation began to dawn on her as she
put in the last hair-pin and patted some stray locks to place.

"I have not told you my name," she said abruptly. "I forgot that because
I know who you are, you know nothing about me. I am Alison West, and my
home is in Richmond."

So that was it! This was the girl of the photograph on John Gilmore's
bedside table. The girl McKnight expected to see in Richmond the next
day, Sunday! She was on her way back to meet him! Well, what difference
d