he only came for this
wedding. It's tonight, I think she said. Aren't you coming?"

Burns walked on at a rapid stride with which Chester, shorter-legged and
narrower-chested, found it difficult to keep up. They had their tramp, a
four-mile course which they were accustomed to cover frequently together
at varying paces. Chester thought they had never covered it quite so
quickly nor so silently before. For Burns, from the moment of receiving
Chester's news, appeared to fall into a reverie from which it was
impossible to draw him, and the subject of which his companion found it
not difficult to guess. After the first half mile, Chester, than whom
few men were more adaptable to a friend's mood, accepted the situation
and paced along as silently as Burns, until the round was made and the
two were at Burns's door.

"Good night. Afraid I've been dumb as an oyster," was Burns's curt
farewell, and Chester chuckled as he walked away.

"Something'll come of the dumbness," he prophesied to himself.

Something did. It was a telegram, telephoned to the office by a sender
who rejoiced that having one's left arm in a sling did not obstruct
one's capacity to send pregnant messages by wire. He had obtained the
address from Martha Macauley, also over the telephone:

"Mrs. E. F. Lessing, Washington, D. C. Am leaving Washington to-night.
Hope to have drive with you to-morrow morning in place of letters
impossible to write. R. P. BURNS."

"I suppose that's a fool telegram," he admitted to himself as he hung
up the receiver, "but after that typing mess I had to express myself
somehow except by signs. Now to get off. Luckily, this suit'll do. No
time to change, anyhow."

He telephoned for a sleeper berth; he called up a village physician and
the house surgeon at the city hospital, and made arrangements with each
for seeing his patients during the two nights and a day of his absence.
He had no serious case on hand and, of course, no surgical work, so that
it was easier to get away than it might be again for a year after his
arm should be once more to be counted on. Then he interviewed Cynthia on
the subject of Bob; after which he packed a small bag, speculating with
some amusement, as he did so, on the succession of porters, bell-boys,
waiters and hotel valets he should have to fee during the next
thirty-six hours to secure their necessary assistance, from the
fastening of his shoes to the tying of his scarfs, the cutting up of his
food