pillow.

"No, General, Aunt Viney's vase--is--not going to be broken, thank
God," answered Everett under his breath as he turned away and left the
General, who, even in sleep, carried his responsibilities sturdily.

"Rose Mary," he said a little later as he stood on the bottom step
below her, so that his eyes were just on a level with hers as she sat
and smiled down upon him, "for a woman, you have very little
curiosity. Don't you want to ask me where I've been, why I went and
what I've been doing every minute since I left you? Can it be
indifference that makes you thus ignore your feminine prerogative of
the inquisition?"

"I'm beginning at being glad you are here. Joy's just the white foam
at the top of the cup, and it ought not to be blown away, no
matter--how thirsty one is, ought it? Now tell me what brought you
back--to save me," and Rose Mary held out her hand, with one of her
lovely, entreating gestures, while her eyes were full of tender tears.
And it was with difficulty that Everett held himself to a condition to
tell her what he wanted her to know without any further delay.

"Well," he answered as he raised his lips from a joy draft at the cup
of her pink palms, "the immediate cause was a telegram that came
Tuesday night. It said '_Gid sells out Mr. Tucker and wants your
girl_,' and it was signed '_Bob_.' All these weeks a bunch of hard old
goldbugs had been sitting in conclave, weighing my evidence and
reports and making one inadequate syndicating offer after another.
They were teetering here and balancing there, but at eleven o'clock
Wednesday morning the cyclone that blew me down here across Old
Harpeth originated in the directors' rooms of the firm, and I guess
the old genties are gasping yet.

"I had that telegram in my pocket, tickets for the three-o'clock
Southern express folded beside 'em, and I put enough daylight into my
proposition to dazzle the whole conclave into setting signatures to
papers they'd been moling over for weeks. I don't know what did it,
but they signed up and certified checks in one large hurry.

"Then I beat it and never drew breath until I made the Farmers' and
Traders' Bank in Boliver this afternoon, covered those notes of Mr.
Alloways, killed that mortgage and hit Providence Road for Sweetbriar.
I met Bob out about a mile from town, and he put me next to the whole
situation and gave _me_ your note. I don't know which I came nearest
to, swearing or crying, but the Plunke