g coat, she showed a willingness to indulge in that exchange of
friendly points of view for which Burke's heart had longed.

The exchange was not brilliant, but Burke made the most of it. No, he
told her, they didn't often have storms as bad as this. One, several
years ago, had blocked traffic for two days, but that was very unusual.
He hoped the young lady knew the roads well. It wasn't easy driving
when you couldn't see your hand before your face. He hoped she wasn't
nervous about getting back; for now he had discovered that she was
intensely nervous about something.

With a gallant effort at ease, the lady took up the theme of the storm
and embroidered it in pretty colors and with much delicate fancy. When
the pattern was getting somewhat confused, she suddenly asked a leading
question.

"Which shoe blew out?"

Burke stared at her. He wished he knew what was expected of him. Did she
want the truth, or didn't she? He realized that momentarily she was
becoming more excited. He had not missed her frequent glances through
the window, up the road, and he knew that for the past five minutes she
had been listening for something wholly unconnected with his words. In
reality Doris was in the grip of an almost unconquerable panic. What had
happened? Why didn't Laurie come?

Burke decided to let her have the truth, or part of the truth. She'd get
it anyway, if she examined the replaced "spare" on the car's rack.

"There wasn't no blow-out," he stated, defensively.

"There wasn't! What do you mean?"

He saw that she was first surprised, then startled, then, as some
sudden reflection came to her, actually appalled.

"I mean that there wasn't no blow-out."

"No blow-out? Then--then--what did I hear?" She asked the question of
Burke, and, as she asked it, recoiled suddenly, as if he had struck her.

"P'raps you got a back-fire," he suggested, reassuringly. "You come down
the steep hill up there, didn't you?"

Doris pulled herself together, shrugged her shoulders, and resolutely
smiled at him. She knew the difference between the sound of a blow-out
and the back-firing of an irritated engine. But some abysmal instinct
made her suddenly cautious, though with that same instinct her inner
panic developed. _What had she heard?_

"I put on a 'spare,' anyway," Burke was saying. "The rear right looked a
little weak, so I changed it."

He was tacitly explaining the bill he had submitted, but Doris did not
hear him. _What had