Marian, "that you think there is anything more than
casual friendship between Linda and Peter Morrison?"

"Not on her part," answered Eugene Snow. "Anybody can see that she is
a child deeply engrossed in all sorts of affairs uncommon for a girl of
her age and position. Her nice perceptions, her wonderful loyalty to
her friends, her loving thought for them, are manifest in everything she
says or does. If she ever makes any mistakes they will be from the head,
not from the heart. But for the other end of the equation I could speak
authoritatively. Katy pointed out to me the fact that if I would watch
Peter Morrison in Miss Linda's presence, I should see that he adored
her. I did watch, and I did see that very thing. When I taxed him about
building a dream house for a dream woman, his eyes crossed a plateau,
leaped a brook, and started up the side of a mountain. They did not rest
until they had found Linda."

Marian sat so still that it seemed as if she were not even breathing.
In view of what Katy had said, and his few words with Peter Morrison,
Eugene Snow had felt justified in giving Marian a hint as to what was
going on in Lilac Valley. Exactly what he had done he had no means of
knowing. If he had known and had talked intentionally he could not have
made clearer to Marian the thing which for months had puzzled her.
She was aware that Eugene Snow was talking, that he was describing the
dinner he had been served, the wonderful wild-flower garden that he had
seen, how skillfully Linda drove the Bear Cat. She heard these things
and dimly comprehended them but underneath, her brain was seizing
upon one fact after another. They had exchanged typewriters. The poor,
foolish little kid had known how her health was wracked, how she was
suffering, how her pride would not let her stoop to Eileen's subterfuges
and wage war with her implements for a man she did not want if her
manner of living her everyday life did not appeal to him. Linda had
known how lonely and heart hungry and disappointed she had gone away,
and loyally she had tried to create an interest in life for her; and she
had succeeded entirely too well. And then in a panic she must have
gone to Peter Morrison and explained the situation; and Peter must
have agreed to take over the correspondence. One by one things that had
puzzled her about the letters and about the whole affair began to grow
clear. She even saw how Linda, having friendly association with no man
save