harshly.

"You are going to the Willings to come home with her?" asked Sylvia,
surprised by his gruffness.

He spoke in a lower tone.

"You didn't see to-day's papers? She's been to Chicago with those
Willings and their machine was smashed and the chauffeur hurt. I'm going
to bring her back. She had no business to be visiting the Willings in
the first place, and their taking her to Chicago without our consent was
downright impudence. I don't want Mrs. Bassett to know of the accident.
I'm going up on the night train."

It satisfied his turbulent spirit to tell her this; he had blurted it
out without attempting to conceal the anger that the thought of Marian
roused in him.

"She wasn't hurt? We should be glad of that!"

Sylvia lingered, her hand on the veranda rail. She seemed very tall in
the mellow starlight. His tone had struck her unpleasantly. There was no
doubt of his anger, or that Marian would feel the force of it when he
found her.

"Oh, she wasn't hurt," he answered dully.

"It's very unfortunate that she was mixed up in it. I suppose she ought
to come home now anyhow."

"The point is that she should never have gone! The Willings are not the
kind of people I want her to know. It was a great mistake, her ever
going."

"Yes, that may be true," said Sylvia quietly. "I don't believe--"

"Well--" he ejaculated impatiently, as though anxious for her to speak
that he might shatter any suggestion she made. Before she came he had
sharply vizualized his meeting with Marian and the Willings. He was
impatient for the encounter, and if Sylvia projected herself in the path
of his righteous anger, she must suffer the consequences.

"If I were you I shouldn't go to Chicago," said Sylvia calmly. "I think
your going for Marian would only make a disagreeable situation worse.
The Willings may not be desirable companions for her, but she has been
their guest, and the motor run to Chicago was only an incident of the
visit. We ought to be grateful that Marian wasn't hurt."

"Oh, you think so! You don't know that her mother had written for her to
come home, and that I had telegraphed her."

"When did you telegraph her?" asked Sylvia, standing her ground.

"Yesterday; yesterday morning, in care of Willing at his farm address."

"Then of course she didn't get your message; she couldn't have had it if
the accident happened in time for this morning's Chicago papers. It must
have taken them all day to get from their plac