were ruddy
with the bite of the crisp air.

"You see before you a castaway," she volunteered, smiling.

He felt it necessary to take the same tone. "A castaway?" he
questioned. "Cast away by whom?"

"By Mr. Avery, if you must know, though your implication that anybody
should have cast me away--anybody at all, Mr. Eaton--is unpleasant."

"There was no implication; it was simply inquiry."

"You should have put it, then, in some other form; you should have
asked how I came to be in so surprising a position."

"'How,' in this part of the country, Miss Dorne, is not regarded as a
question, but merely as a form of salutation," he bantered. "It was
formerly employed by the Indian aborigines inhabiting these parts, who
exchanged 'How's' when passing each other on the road. If I had said
'How,' you might simply have replied 'How,' and I should have been
under the necessity of considering the incident closed."

She laughed. "You do not wish it to be closed."

"Not till I know more about it."

"Very well; you shall know more. Mr. Avery brought me out to take a
walk. He remembered, after bringing me as far as this, that we had not
asked my father whether he had any message to be sent from here or any
commission to execute; so he went back to find out. I have now waited
so many minutes that I feel sure it is my father who has detained him.
The imperfectly concealed meaning of what I am telling you is that I
consider that Mr. Avery, by his delay, has forfeited his right. The
further implication--for _I_ do imply things, Mr. Eaton--is that you
cannot very well avoid offering to take the post of duty he has
abandoned."

"You mean walk with you?"

"I do."

He slipped his hand inside her arm, sustaining her slight, active body
against the wind which blew strongly through the station and scattered
over them snow-flakes blown from the roofs of the cars, as they walked
forward along the train. Her manner had told him that she meant to
ignore her resentment of the morning; but as, turning, they commenced
to walk briskly up and down the platform, he found he was not wholly
right in this.

"You must admit, Mr. Eaton, that I am treating you very well."

"In pardoning an offense where no offense was meant?"

"It is partly that--that I realized no offense was meant. Partly it is
because I do not pass judgment on things I do not understand. I could
imagine no possible reason for your very peculiar refusal."

"Not e