en, the two were alone together.
Instead he talked of his hurried trip abroad with the Burnses, and once,
when they were pacing up and down a platform, at a long stop, he told her
of his visit to a certain noted specialist in Berlin.

"I had had a breakdown in my work last spring," he said, in a quite
simple way, as if he were speaking of something unimportant. "I had made
up my mind that I could never hope fully to recover from its effects. Dr.
Z---- told me that I was perfectly recovered, that I was as sound,
mentally and physically, as I had ever been, and that, if I used ordinary
common sense in the future about vacations at reasonable intervals, there
was no reason why the experience should ever be repeated. This assurance
was what sent me home. I found I couldn't stay in Germany and go
sightseeing with my friends after that. I wanted to be at work again."

"I wonder that Dr. Burns didn't want to rush home with you," Charlotte
observed--though it was not of Red Pepper she was thinking. This simple
statement, she knew, was the explanation he was giving her of the thing
he had said to her last August under her apple-tree. It made clear to her
that which she had suspected before--it somehow seemed, also, to take
away the last barrier between them.

"Burns needed the change--he hasn't had a vacation except his honeymoon
for years. By the way, he's having a second honeymoon over there."

"I'm very glad," Charlotte responded.

Then the summons came for the return to the train, and Mr. and Mrs.
Macauley, waving to them from the other end of the platform, met them at
the step.

On the morning of the third day the party reached their destination. They
were met at the small station by a staid but comfortable equipage, driven
by an old family coachman with grizzled, kinky hair and a black face full
of solemnity. They were taken to the hospitable home of the owner of the
dignified old carriage and the fat, well-kept horses which had brought
them to her door, and were there welcomed as only Southern hostesses can
welcome. Mrs. Catesby's mother had been a friend of Madam Chase's youth,
and for her sake the daughter had thrown open her house to do honour to
the ashes of one whom she had never seen.

"How glad I am," Charlotte said, soon after her arrival, standing by a
window with kind Mrs. Catesby, "to come down here where it is spring. I
could never have borne it--to put Granny away under the snow. She didn't
like the sn