sponse with
which, before, she had met my nonsensical sallies. She stood there,
white-lipped, unsmiling, staring down the dusty road. One hand was
clenched tight over some small object. Her eyes dropped to it from the
distant road, and then closed, with a quick, indrawn breath. Her color
came back slowly. Whatever had caused the change, she said nothing.
She was anxious to leave at once, almost impatient over my deliberate
masculine way of getting my things together. Afterward I recalled that I
had wanted to explore the barn for a horse and some sort of a vehicle to
take us to the trolley, and that she had refused to allow me to look. I
remembered many things later that might have helped me, and did not.
At the time, I was only completely bewildered. Save the wreck, the
responsibility for which lay between Providence and the engineer of the
second section, all the events of that strange morning were logically
connected; they came from one cause, and tended unerringly to one end.
But the cause was buried, the end not yet in view.

Not until we had left the house well behind did the girl's face relax
its tense lines. I was watching her more closely than I had realized,
for when we had gone a little way along the road she turned to me
almost petulantly. "Please don't stare so at me," she said, to my sudden
confusion. "I know the hat is dreadful. Green always makes me look
ghastly."

"Perhaps it was the green." I was unaccountably relieved. "Do you know,
a few minutes ago, you looked almost pallid to me!"

She glanced at me quickly, but I was gazing ahead. We were out of
sight of the house, now, and with every step away from it the girl was
obviously relieved. Whatever she held in her hand, she never glanced at
it. But she was conscious of it every second. She seemed to come to
a decision about it while we were still in sight of the gate, for
she murmured something and turned back alone, going swiftly, her feet
stirring up small puffs of dust at every step. She fastened something
to the gate-post,--I could see the nervous haste with which she worked.
When she joined me again it was without explanation. But the clenched
fingers were free now, and while she looked tired and worn, the strain
had visibly relaxed.

We walked along slowly in the general direction of the suburban trolley
line. Once a man with an empty wagon offered us a lift, but after a
glance at the springless vehicle I declined.

"The ends of the bone thi