h with us. We're a nasty lot, we Ffrenches; a lot of
blue-blooded snobs without any red blood in us. Are you going to say
good-by to me? I won't be home until it's over."

She looked at him, across the odorous dusk slowly silvering as the
moon rose.

"You are going to be with him?"

Dick smoothed his leggings before standing up, surveying his strict
motor costume with a gloomy pride not to be concealed.

"Yes; I'm representing our company. Lestrange might want some backing
if any disputes turned up. Uncle Ethan nearly had a fit when Bailey
told him what I was going to do; he called me Richard for the first
time in my life. I guess I'll be some good yet, if every one except
Lestrange did think I was a chump."

"I am very sure you will," she answered gently. "Good-by, Dick; you
look very nice."

When he reached the foot of the steps, her voice recalled him, as she
stood leaning over the rail.

"Dick, you could not make him give it up, not race this time?"

He stared up at her white figure.

"No, I could not. Don't you suppose I tried?"

"I suppose you did," she admitted, and went back to her seat.

The June night was very quiet. Once a sleepy bird stirred in the
honeysuckle vines and chirped through the dark. Far below the throb
of a motor passed down the road, dying away again to leave silence.
Suddenly Emily Ffrench hid her face on the arm of her chair and the
tears overflowed.

There was no consciousness of time while that inarticulate passion of
dread spent itself. But it was nearly half an hour later when she
started up at the echo of a light step on the gravel path, dashing her
handkerchief across her eyes.

It was incredible, but it was true: Lestrange himself was standing
before her at the foot of the low stairs, the moonlight glinting
across his uncovered bronze head and bright, clear face.

"I beg pardon for trespass, Miss Ffrench," he said, "but your cousin
tells me he has been saying a great deal of nonsense to you about
this race, and that you were so very good as to feel some concern
regarding it. Really, I had to run up and set that right; I couldn't
leave you to be annoyed by Mr. Ffrench's nerves. Will you forgive me?"

Like sun through a mist his blithe voice cleaved through her distress.
Before the tranquil sanity of his regard, her painted terrors suddenly
showed as the artificial canvas scenes of a stage, unreal, untrue.

"It was like you to come," she answered, with a shaking sigh