d faithfully to keep him posted as
to events at home, climbed into the tonneau and was whizzed away. Jim,
the driver, after a few attempts at conversation, mainly concerning the
"unseasonableness" of the weather, finding responses few and absently
given, relapsed into silence. Silence was what Mary desired, silence and
speed, and Jim obliged with the latter.

Over the road by which, a dozen years before, she had driven in the old
buggy she now rode again. Then, as now, she wondered what she should
find at her journey's end. Here, however, the resemblance ceased,
for whereas then she looked forward, with a child's anticipations, to
nothing more definite than new sights and new and excitingly delightful
adventures, now she saw ahead--what? Great care and anxiety and
trouble certainly, these at the best; and at the worst, failure
and disappointment and heartbreak. And behind her she was leaving
opportunity and the pleasant school life and friends, leaving them
forever.

She was leaving Crawford, too, leaving him without a word of
explanation. She had had no time to write even a note. Mrs. Wyeth, after
protesting vainly against her guest's decision to leave for the Cape by
the earliest train in the morning, had helped to pack a few essential
belongings; the others she was to pack and send later on, when she
received word to do so. The three, Mrs. Wyeth, Miss Pease, and Mary, had
talked and argued and planned until almost daylight. Then followed an
hour or two of uneasy sleep, a hurried breakfast, and the rush to the
train. Mary had not written Crawford; the shock of what she had been
told at the Howes' and her great anxiety to see Judge Baxter and learn
if what she had heard was true had driven even her own love story from
her mind. Now she remembered that she had given him permission to call,
not this evening but the next, to say good-by before leaving for the
West. He would be disappointed, poor fellow. Well, she must not think of
that. She must not permit herself to think of anyone but her uncles or
of anything except the great debt of love and gratitude she owed them
and of the sacrifice they had made for her. She could repay a little of
that sacrifice now; at least she could try. She would think of that and
of nothing else.

And then she wondered what Crawford would think or say when he found she
had gone.

CHAPTER XVIII

The main street of South Harniss looked natural enough as the motor car
buzzed alon