n the porch, and waited. At the end of ten
minutes Auber Hurn entered the gate, crossed to the buggy, and got in.
Josiah, from between the horses where he was buckling a knee-guard,
looked up in surprise. "You got that message, Mr. Hurn?"

"Yes," said Auber, speaking very distinctly. "Mr. Crenshaw just gave it
to me."

Josiah turned to me. "I thought you said--" he began.

"I was mistaken--I mean, I misunderstood you," I interposed.

Josiah stared, and then finished the harnessing. "Your coats are here
under the seat," he remarked. I took my place mechanically. Mrs. Josiah
came with some milk and sandwiches. I finished mine hurriedly, and took
the reins.

Auber sank back into his corner without a word, leaving me to feel only
a sense of desperate confused isolation, of lonely helplessness.

At length Auber said, in a voice that startled me, a low, contented
voice: "You were on the path? You went to find me yourself?"

"Yes," I answered; and then, after a long time, "And you were not
there--yourself?"

"No, I was not there." He leaned back against the cushions, and I
thought he smiled. "I was in that hill meadow. I went to sleep there for
a short time."

It was two o'clock when we drove into the yard. William was waiting to
take the horses.

As we went into the house, William asked if he should have the trap for
the 11.10 express. I could not answer, and Auber said, looking at me in
the light of the open door, "Yes, certainly."

I can see him now in the cheerless white hallway, his tall figure
exaggerated in a long driving-cloak, his high features sharpened in the
light of the lantern.

In taking off my coat I felt, in the pocket, the letter I had written to
my engineer in Trenton. I laid it on the hall table. "You might post
that to-morrow before you get to New York," I said, casually.

Then I lighted him to his room, and we said "good night."

Undressing mechanically, I went to bed, and after a long time I slept,
exhausted.

A rumbling noise; then, after it had ceased, the realization that a
carriage had driven out of the yard--that was what woke me up. The clock
on my bureau said half past ten. For a moment I forgot what that meant;
and then sliding out of bed, I tiptoed quickly down the hall. Putting my
ear to Auber's door, I listened--till I had made sure. From within came
the dull breathing of a sleeper. Throwing on a few clothes, I went
down-stairs. The waitress was dusting in the hall.

"Wher