o him. No, she was not seeking to make a
mystery out of the matter. Still, the question recurred: Why had she
avoided even the most casual mention of these outings?

He replaced the statement in the envelope thoughtfully and put it away in
his pocket. He was trying to banish the look of dark introspection from
his eyes when Sylvia came in from the kitchen and gave a little cry of joy
at sight of him. She _was_ happy at the sight of him--Harboro knew it. Yet
the cloud did not lift from his brow as he drew her to him and kissed her
slowly. She was keeping a secret from him. The conclusion was
inescapable.

His impulse was to face the thing frankly, affectionately. He had only to
ask her to explain and the thing would be cleared up. But for the first
time he found it difficult to be frank with her. If the thing he felt was
not a sense of injury, it was at least a sense of mystery: of resentment,
too. He could not deny that he felt resentful. At the foundation of his
consciousness there was, perhaps, the belief and the hope that she would
explain voluntarily. He felt that something precious would be saved to him
if she confided in him without prompting, without urging. If he waited,
perhaps she would do so. His sense of delicacy forbade him to inquire
needlessly into her personal affairs. Surely she was being actuated by
some good reason. That she was committed to an evil course was a suspicion
which he would have rejected as monstrous. Such a suspicion did not occur
to him.

It did not occur to him until the next day, when a bolt fell.

He received another communication from the stable. It was an apology for
an error that had been made. The stableman found that he had no account
against Mr. Harboro, but that one which should have been made out against
Mr. Runyon had been sent to him by mistake.

Quite illogically, perhaps, Harboro jumped to the conclusion that the
service had really been rendered to Sylvia, as the original statement had
said, and that for some obscure reason it was to be charged against
Runyon. But even now it was not a light that he saw. Rather, he was
enveloped in darkness. He heard the envelope crackle in his clinched hand.
He turned and climbed the stairs heavily, so that he need not encounter
Sylvia until he had had time to think, until he could understand.

Sylvia was taking rides, and Runyon was paying for them. That was to say,
Runyon was the moving factor in the arrangement. Therefore, Runyon