guely, Ewing thought. He looked from one to the other.
The lady puzzled him, but the big man drew him from his embarrassment,
helping him to an ease which he could hardly have achieved with his
hostess alone.

Without knowing quite how he began he was presently talking.
Unconsciously he directed his speech to the man, who kept kind eyes on
him and led him by questions when he paused. He was aware that the woman
listened and that her eyes searched his face, but he divined, without
meeting them, that they were more curious than kind, and several times,
as she moved in her chair, he seemed to feel sharp little points of
hostility radiating toward him.

But the big man drew him more and more from the consciousness of her
presence, so that he all but forgot her. It seemed entirely natural to
him that he should be telling this friendly inquirer of his early life,
the first memories of his father and mother, and of the queer, shifting
home they had known. As he told of the death of his mother--both
listeners had seemed strangely alert for that--he was startled by a
sound from the lady--a catching of breath and a gasp of pain. He turned
quickly, but observed only a stiffly courteous gesture bidding him
continue.

He stopped in confusion, feeling that a strange quiet had come upon the
room. The questions from the big man had ceased, and the woman drooped
in her chair until he could no longer distinguish her outline through
the deepening dusk. Nor was there any sound when his own voice ceased.
Neither figure stirred. He was oppressed by the awkwardness of it.

"I should have pulled up," he said, with an uneasy laugh. "I forgot I
wasn't on a lone road."

There was still no sign from the woman, shrunk far into her chair, but
the doctor rose at his speech with a half-muttered, "We're obliged to
you." Ewing rose at the same time, with an impulse to break some strain
that he felt himself sharing. The doctor reached out in the dusk and
turned on an electric light that hung above the table, looking quickly
at Mrs. Lowndes as he did so, for there had come from her a murmur of
protest at the light. Ewing also looked at her from where he stood on
the hearth rug. The lighting of the room had intensified some electrical
current that pulsed from each to each. The woman returned Ewing's gaze
with the absorption of one moved beyond all arts of convention. Her eyes
glistened, ominous of tears, and her small, lean chin trembled as her
lips