young man. He stared
in perturbation.

"Is anybody dead?" he whispered.

"Jump up quick," said the doctor sharply, "and run down and feed Speed
right away; I want her again in a few minutes, do you understand? Then
go down to the track when Lauchie stops, and give him a telegram I want
sent on. Tell him I'm not going to Toronto."

On the third day of the new year, when John McIntyre was quite out of
danger, Gilbert went over to Mrs. Winters' to ask if she could do
something to make the man's surroundings more comfortable. This was
just the opportunity for which the village manager had been longing
ever since the watchman had taken up his residence at the Drowned
Lands. She organized a housecleaning brigade, and every woman in the
place joined the ranks. Old Hughie Cameron drove them down the ravine
in Sandy McQuarry's big sleigh, and they descended upon John McIntyre's
establishment, and soaked and washed and scrubbed until there seemed no
small danger of the little shanty's joining the Drowned Lands under a
deluge of soapy water. They brought all sorts of comforts, too. Miss
Arabella donated her bedroom rug with the purple robins. Miss McQuarry
brought bedclothes, Mrs. Winters a feather mattress, and the Longs
cooking utensils; and they made beef-tea and chicken broth and jellies,
until, from fearing that his patient might die of neglect, the doctor
changed to apprehensions lest he be killed with over-attention.

When the rush and excitement of it was all over Gilbert felt as though
he had fallen from some great height, and was not yet certain how badly
he was hurt. That he had grievously offended Rosalie this time he was
assured. She would listen to no explanations. He might have come if
he had wanted, she declared; and when he humbly asked if he might not
come yet, he was answered by a newspaper with a paragraph in the
society column marked. Miss Rosalie Lane, it stated, was visiting
friends in New York.

Harwood went back to the city, and, left alone, Gilbert was too busy to
speculate much upon his wrongs. He put them behind him manfully, his
indignation at the unfairness of Rosalie's treatment helping him to
bear them. But he wrote to her again, very humbly, as usual, and
repeated his promise to come to the city in the spring. She
condescended to answer, but her brief note was all about the fun she
was having, and she made no allusion to his future plans. And with
this he was forced to be c