that he should leave her at the
"Red Chief" Hotel, while he continued on to Blazing Star, returning at
noon to bring her with him when he could do it without exposing her to
recognition. The gray dawn came soon enough, and the coach drew up at
"Red Chief" while the lights in the bar-room and dining-room of the
hotel were still struggling with the far flushing east. Cass alighted,
placed Miss Mortimer in the hands of the landlady, and returned to the
vehicle. It was still musty, close, and frowzy, with half awakened
passengers. There was a vacated seat on the top, which Cass climbed up
to, and abstractedly threw himself beside a figure muffled in shawls
and rugs. There was a slight movement among the multitudinous
enwrappings, and then the figure turned to him and said dryly, "Good
morning!" It was Miss Porter!

"Have you been long here?" he stammered.

"All night."

He would have given worlds to leave her at that moment. He would have
jumped from the starting coach to save himself any explanation of the
embarrassment he was furiously conscious of showing, without, as he
believed, any adequate cause. And yet, like all inexperienced,
sensitive men, he dashed blindly into that explanation; worse, he even
told his secret at once, then and there, and then sat abashed and
conscience-stricken, with an added sense of its utter futility.

"And this," summed up the young girl, with a slight shrug of her pretty
shoulders, "is _your May_?"

Cass would have recommenced his story.

"No, don't, pray! It isn't interesting, nor original. Do _you_ believe
it?"

"I do," said Cass, indignantly.

"How lucky! Then let me go to sleep."

Cass, still furious, but uneasy, did not again address her. When the
coach stopped at Blazing Star she asked him, indifferently: "When does
this sentimental pilgrimage begin?"

"I return for her at one o'clock," replied Cass, stiffly. He kept his
word. He appeased his eager companions with a promise of future
fortune, and exhibited the present and tangible reward. By a circuitous
route known only to himself, he led Miss Mortimer to the road before
the cabin. There was a pink flush of excitement on her somewhat faded
cheek.

"And it was here?" she asked, eagerly.

"I found it here."

"And the body?"

"That was afterward. Over in that direction, beyond the clump of
buckeyes, on the Red Chief turnpike."

"And any one coming from the road we left just now and going
to--to--that place, would