of him. There was Dunwoodie, for example. He ran into Dunwoodie one
morning on his way to work, and the good fellow had stopped him with an
almost too patent friendliness.

"Come, stop long enough to have a drink," said Dunwoodie, blushing without
apparent cause and shaking Harboro awkwardly by the hand. And then, as if
this blunt invitation might prove too transparent, he added: "I was in a
game last night, and I'm needing one."

There was no need for Dunwoodie to explain his desire for a drink--or his
disinclination to drink alone. Harboro saw nothing out of the ordinary in
the invitation; but unfortunately he responded before he had quite taken
the situation into account.

"It's pretty early for me," he said. "Another time--if you'll excuse me."

It was to be regretted that Harboro's manner seemed a trifle stiff; and
Dunwoodie read uncomfortable meanings into that refusal. He never repeated
the invitation; and others, hearing of the incident, concluded that
Harboro was too deeply offended by what the town had done to him to care
for anybody's friendship any more. The thing that the town had done to
Harboro was like an open page to everybody. Indeed, the people of Eagle
Pass knew that Harboro had been counted out of eligible circles
considerably before Harboro knew it himself.

As for Sylvia, contentment overspread her like incense. She was to have
Harboro all to herself, and she was not to be required to run the gantlet
of the town's too-knowing eyes. She felt safe in that house on the Quemado
Road, and she hoped that she now need not emerge from it until old menaces
were passed, and people had come and gone, and she could begin a new
chapter.

She was somewhat annoyed by her father during those days. He sent messages
by Antonia. Why didn't she come to see him? She was happy, yes. But could
she forget her old father? Was she that kind of a daughter? Such was the
substance of the messages which reached her.

She would not go to see him. She could not bear to think of entering his
house. She had been homesick occasionally--that she could not deny. There
had been moments when the new home oppressed her by its orderliness, by
its strangeness. And she was fond of her father. She supposed she ought
not to be fond of him; he had always been a worthless creature. But such
matters have little to do with the law of cause and effect. She loved
him--there was the truth, and it could not be ignored. But with every
passin