x o'clock, Mr. Lee said, and here it is
ten, and all your beautiful dinner spoiled. Marion, are you keeping
something from me? Look me in the eye. Have you heard from Gordon
Smith?"

"No, Dicksie."

"Not since he left the mountains a year ago?"

"Not since he left the mountains a year ago."

Dicksie, sitting forward in her chair, bent her eyes upon the fire.
"It is so strange. I wonder where he is to-night. How he loves you,
Marion! He told me everything when he said good-by. He made me promise
not to tell then; but I didn't promise to keep it forever."

Marion smiled. "A year isn't forever, Dicksie."

"Well, it's pretty near forever when you are in love," declared
Dicksie energetically. "I know just how he felt," she went on in a
quieter tone. "He felt that all the disagreeable excitement and talk
we had here then bore heaviest on you. He said if he stayed in
Medicine Bend the newspapers never would cease talking and people
never would stop annoying you--and you know George did say they were
asking to have passenger trains held here just so people could see
Whispering Smith. And, Marion, think of it, he actually doesn't know
yet that George and I are married! How could we notify him without
knowing where he was? And he doesn't know that trains are running up
the Crawling Stone Valley. Mercy! a year goes like an hour when you're
in love, doesn't it? George said he _knew_ we should hear from him
within six months--and George has never yet been mistaken excepting
when he said I should grow to like the railroad business--and now it
is a year and no news from him." Dicksie sprang from her chair. "I am
going to call up Mr. Rooney Lee and just demand my husband! I think
Mr. Lee handles trains shockingly every time George tries to get home
like this on Saturday nights--now don't you? And passenger trains
ought to get out of the way, anyway, when a division superintendent
is trying to get home. What difference does it make to a passenger,
I'd like to know, whether he is a few hours less or longer in getting
to California or Japan or Manila or Hongkong or Buzzard's Gulch,
provided he is safe--and you know there has not been an accident on
the division for a year, Marion. There's a step now. I'll bet that's
George!"

The door opened and it was George.

"Oh, honey!" cried Dicksie softly, waving her arms as she stood an
instant before she ran to him. "But haven't I been a-waitin' for
you!"

"Too bad! and, Marion," he e