s approaching.

She was within twenty feet of the piazza when she saw that her uncle was
not alone; there was some one sitting in front of him who had been
concealed by his broad shoulders. This person was a woman. She had
caught sight of Olive, and stuck her head out on one side to look at
her. Upon her dough-like face there was a grin, and in her eye a light
of triumph. With one quick glance she seemed to say: "Ah, ha, you find
me here, do you? What have you to say to that?"

Olive's heart stood still. That woman, that Maria Port, sitting in close
converse with her uncle in that public place where she had never seen
any one but men! That horrid woman at such a moment as this! She could
not speak to her; she could not speak to her uncle in her presence. She
could not stop. With what she had on her mind, and with what she had in
her pocket, it would be impossible to say a word before that Maria Port!
Without a swerve she sped on, and passed the toll-gate. She only knew
one thing; she could not stop.

The wildest suspicions now rushed into her mind. Why should her uncle
be thus exposing himself to the public gaze with Maria Port? Why did it
give the woman such diabolical pleasure to be seen there with him? With
a mind already prepared for such sickening revelations, Olive was
convinced that it could mean nothing but that her uncle intended to
marry Maria Port. What else could it mean? But no matter what it meant,
she could not stop. She could not go back.

On went her bicycle, and presently she gained sufficient command over
herself to know that she should not ride into the town. But what else
could she do? She could not go back while those two were sitting on the
piazza. Suddenly she remembered the shunpike. She had never been on it,
but she knew where it left the road, and where it reentered it. So she
kept on her course, and in a few minutes had reached the narrow country
road. There were ruts here and there, and sometimes there were stony
places; there were small hills, mostly rough; and there were few
stretches of smooth road; but on went Olive; sometimes trying with much
effort to make good time, and always with tears in her eyes, dimming the
roadway, the prospect, and everything in the world.

"There now!" exclaimed Maria Port, springing to her feet. "What have you
got to say to that? If that isn't brazen I never saw brass!"

"What do you mean?" said the captain, rising in his chair.

"Mean?" said Maria Por