uld you do it! How could you
do it!... Was he still lying in a heap on the floor? But of course the
sneaking little Jap had found him.... Somebody to talk to. That was what
she wanted. Some one to talk to....

Some one to talk to. She stood there, in the middle of her lamp-lighted
living room, and she held out her hands in silent appeal. Some one to
talk to. In her mind she went over the list of those whose lives had
touched hers in the last few crowded years. Fenger, Fascinating Facts,
Ella Monahan, Nathan Haynes; all the gay, careless men and women she had
met from time to time through Fenger and Fascinating Facts. Not one of
them could she turn to now.

Clarence Heyl. She breathed a sigh of relief. Clarence Heyl. He had
helped her once, to-day. And now, for the second time, something that
he had said long before came from its hiding place in her subconscious
mind. She had said:

"Some days I feel I've got to walk out of the office, and down the
street, without a hat, and on and on, walking and walking, and running
and running till I come to the horizon."

And Heyl had answered, in his quiet, reassuring way: "Some day that
feeling will get too strong for you. When that time comes get on a train
marked Denver. From there take another to Estes Park. That's the Rocky
Mountains, where the horizon lives and has its being. Ask for Heyl's
place. They'll hand you from one to the other. I may be there, but more
likely I shan't. The key's in the mail box, tied to a string. You'll
find a fire laid with fat pine knots. My books are there. The bedding's
in the cedar chest. And the mountains will make you clean and whole
again; and the pines..."

Fanny went to the telephone. Trains for Denver. She found the road she
wanted, and asked for information. She was on her own ground here. All
her life she had had to find her own trains, check her own trunks, plan
her journeys. Sometimes she had envied the cotton-wool women who had had
all these things done for them, always.

One-half of her mind was working clearly and coolly. The other half was
numb. There were things to be done. They would take a day. More than
a day, but she would neglect most of them. She must notify the office.
There were tickets to be got. Reservations. Money at the bank. Packing.
When the maid came in at eleven Fanny had suitcases and bags out, and
her bedroom was strewn with shoes, skirts, coats.

Late Monday afternoon Fenger telephoned. She did not answer