s where the men had tumbled and reeled. She
slowly followed the trails, picking her way carefully, clinging to bits
of shrub. Her lips curved into a grim smile as she pictured their
surprise and pain. At the foot of the canyon she saw something shining
among the rocks.

She lifted it curiously, and turned it in her hand. It was clean and
shining,--a small steel badge marked Secret Service.

Eveley's eyes clouded, and her brows took on a troubled frown, as she put
the badge carefully into her purse.

"I shall never tell Marie," she said. "It would not help much with the
Americanization of a sweet and trusting foreign girl to know she had been
followed at night by a steel badge marked Secret Service."

And Eveley followed the path back to the bridge again with a grieved and
troubled air.

CHAPTER XVII

SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION

As the weeks passed, Eveley noticed a change in the conduct of the
honeymoon home beneath her. Many times in the early morning, she saw Mrs.
Severs going out with a covered basket and wearing an old long coat and a
tight-fitting small hat. And sometimes she met her in the evening, coming
home, dusty, tired and happy.

"I am going to father's," she would explain lightly. Or, "I have been out
with father to-day."

And at the quizzical laughter in Eveley's eyes, she would add defiantly:
"He is a darling, Eveley, and I was very silly. Why didn't you bring me
to my senses?"

For Mrs. Severs was feeling less well than usual, and in the long absence
of her husband every day, she was learning to depend on the brusk,
kindly, capable father-in-law. And many days, when she was not well
enough to leave home, he came himself, and the girls up-stairs could hear
him in the kitchen below, preparing dinner for Andy and his ailing bride.

"Whatever should I do without him, Miss Ainsworth?" she sometimes asked.
"He does everything for me. And I think he likes me pretty well, now he
is getting used to me. He is good to me,--his little funny ways are not
really funny any more, but rather sweet. I spoiled everything with my
selfishness, and he will never try to live with us again."

One evening, when Father-in-law had been particularly tender and helpful,
she looked at Eveley with brooding eyes, and said, "You are such a nice
girl, but I sort of blame you because father is not with us. You are so
much cleverer than I,--couldn't you have opened my eyes before it was too
late?"

And Eveley ran up th