"I'm all right, never fear!" Tom laughed, evading the other's eye. "I'm
going out in the country on some business, and I dare say I shall not
be back for a couple of days; it will be all up and down the county."
He set down a travelling-bag he was carrying, and offered the other his
hand. "Good-by."

"Can't I go for you? You don't look able."

"No, no. It's something I'll have to attend to myself."

"Ah, I suppose," said Crailey, gently, "I suppose it's important, and
you couldn't trust me to handle it. Well--God knows you're right! I've
shown you often enough how incompetent I am to do anything but write
jingles!"

"You do some more of them--without the whiskey, Crailey. They're worth
more than all the lawing Gray and Vanrevel have ever done or ever will
do. Good-by---and be kind to yourself."

He descended to the first landing, and then, "Oh, Crailey," he called,
with the air of having forgotten something he had meant to say.

"Yes, Tom?"

"This morning at the post-office I found a letter addressed to me. I
opened it and--" He hesitated, and uneasily shifted his weight from one
foot to the other, with a feeble, deprecatory laugh.

"Yes, what of it?"

"Well--there seemed to be a mistake. I think it must have been meant for
you. Somehow, she--she's picked up a good many wrong impressions, and,
Lord knows how, but she's mixed our names up and--and I've left the
letter for you. It's on my table."

He turned and calling a final good-by over his shoulder, went clattering
noisily down to the street and vanished from Crailey's sight.

Noon found Tom far out on the National Road, creaking along over the
yellow dust in a light wagon, between bordering forests that smelt
spicily of wet underbrush and May-apples; and, here and there, when they
would emerge from the woods to cleared fields, liberally outlined by
long snake-fences of black walnut, the steady, jog-trotting old horse
lifted his head and looked interested in the world, but Tom never did
either. Habitually upright, walking or sitting, straight, keen, and
alert, that day's sun saw him drearily hunched over, mile after mile,
his forehead laced with lines of pain. He stopped at every farm-house
and cabin, and, where the young men worked in the fields, hailed them
from the road, or hitched his horse to the fence and crossed the soft
furrows to talk with them. At such times he stood erect again, and spoke
stirringly, finding eager listeners. There was one qu