"he says he started to run with
you, but you got ahead and slipped out of the garden door--or something
of the kind," she added, with the air of making light of Rose's girlish
fears. "You know one scarcely knows what one does at such times, and
it must have been frightfully strange to YOU--and he's been quite
distracted, lest you should have wandered away. Adele, run and tell him
Miss Mallory has been here under the oak all the time."

Rose started--and then fell hopelessly back in her seat. Perhaps it WAS
true! Perhaps he had not rushed off with that awful face and without a
word. Perhaps she herself had been half-frightened out of her reason.
In the simple, weak kindness of her nature it seemed less dreadful to
believe that the fault was partly her own.

"And you went back into the house to look for us when all was over,"
said Mrs. Randolph, fixing her black, beady, magnetic eyes on Rose, "and
that stupid yokel Zake brought you out again. He needn't have clutched
your arm so closely, my dear,--I must speak to the major about his
excessive familiarity--but I suppose I shall be told that that is
American freedom. I call it 'a liberty.'"

It struck Rose that she had not even thanked the man--in the same flash
that she remembered something dreadful that he had said. She covered her
face with her hands and tried to recall herself.

Mrs. Randolph gently tapped her shoulder with a mixture of maternal
philosophy and discipline, and continued: "Of course, it's an upset--and
you're confused still. That's nothing. They say, dear, it's perfectly
well known that no two people's recollections of these things ever are
the same. It's really ridiculous the contradictory stories one hears.
Isn't it, Emile?"

Rose felt that the young man had joined them and was looking at her. In
the fear that she should still see some trace of the startled, selfish
animal in his face, she did not dare to raise her eyes to his, but
looked at his mother. Mrs. Randolph was standing then, collected but
impatient.

"It's all over now," said Emile, in his usual voice, "and except the
chimneys and some fallen plaster there's really no damage done. But
I'm afraid they have caught it pretty badly at the mission, and at San
Francisco in those tall, flashy, rattle-trap buildings they're putting
up. I've just sent off one of the men for news."

Her father was in San Francisco by that time; and she had never thought
of him! In her quick remorse she now forg