t so many accidents can
happen with automobiles when the driver is drunk! My dear, I never can
thank you enough!"

They were both too excited to sleep soon, but long after the mother was
asleep Ruth lay awake going over the whole day and wondering. There were
so many things about the incident of the afternoon and evening, now that
they were over, that were utterly out of accord with her whole life
heretofore. She felt intuitively that her aunt would never understand if
she were to explain the whole proceeding. There were so many laws of her
little world of conventionalities that she had transgressed, and so many
qualms of a belated conscience about whether she ought to have done it at
all. What would Cameron think of her, anyway? Her cheeks burned hot in
the dark over that question. Strange she had not thought of it at all
either beforehand or while she sat beside him during that wonderful ride!
And now the thing that Wainwright had said shouted itself out to her
ears: "Rotten! Rotten! Rotten!" like a dirge. Suppose he were? It
_couldn't_ be true. It _just couldn't_, but suppose he were? Well,
suppose he were! How was she hurt by doing a kind act? Having taken that
stand against all her former ideas Ruth had instant peace and drifted
into dreams of what she had been enjoying, the way suddenly lit by a
sleepy remembrance of Wetherill's declaration: "He won't drink! You can't
make him! It's been tried again and again!" There was evidence in his
favor. Why hadn't she remembered that before? And his mother! She had
been so sure of him!

The telephone bell wakened her with a message from camp. His voice
greeted her pleasantly with the word that it was all right, he had
reached camp in plenty of time, found a good place for the car, and it
would be at the hotel at nine o'clock. Ruth turned from the phone with a
vague disappointment. He had not said a word of thanks or good-bye or
anything, only that he must hurry. Not even a word to his mother. But
then, of course, men did not think of those little things, perhaps, as
women did, and maybe it was just as well for him to take it all as a
matter of course. It made it less embarrassing for her.

But when they went down to the car, behold he was in it!

"I got leave off for the morning," he explained smiling. "I told my
captain all about how you got me back in time when I'd missed the train
and he told me to see you as far as Wilmington and catch the noon train
back from there