s hair
there had been no greeting between her husband and herself since his cry
to her as she sat on the balcony in the darkness; but perhaps the
substitute for love didn't call for it.

She went down-stairs to carry out her intentions of ringing up Jim Breen
and sending her cablegram to France. Since the necessity for doing the
former would take her to her own house, she would have the chance of
changing her dress before the relative publicity of the telegraph-office
in the Square. She would need also to explain the circumstances to her
servants, who by this hour would be moving about the house and might be
alarmed on finding that her room had not been occupied. The door to the
garden portico being that which would probably be unlocked, she turned
into Willoughby's Lane, where her attention was caught by the sight of
two men coming down the hill.

What she saw was a young man helping an older one. The old man leaned
heavily on his companion, hobbling with the weariness of one who can
barely drag himself along.

Lois was seized by sudden faintness; but a saving thought restored her.
It was no more than the prompting to give this spent wayfarer a cup of
coffee as he passed her door, but it met the instant's need. By a
deliberate effort of the will she banished every suggestion beyond this
kindly impulse. If there were graver arguments to urge themselves, they
were for others rather than for her.

* * * * *

That she was not the only person within eight or ten hours to be
startled by the sight of that little old man was abundantly evidenced
later. John Stanchfield, Elias Palmer, Harold Ormthwaite, and Nathan
Ridge, all farmers or market-gardeners of the Colcord district,
testified to frights and "spooky feelings" on being accosted by a dim
gray figure plodding along the Colcord road in the lonely interval
between midnight and morning. The dim gray figure seemed to have
recognized the different "teams" by the section of the road through
which they jolted or by their flickering lamps.

"That you, 'Lias?"

"Why, yes! Who be you? Darned if it ain't Jasper Fay! What under the
everlastin' canopy be you a-doin' this way so late at night?--so early
in the mornin', as you might say."

"My poor boy! To be let out at five!"

Grunts of sympathy and inquiries concerning the nature of the "truck"
being taken to market made up the rest of the conversation, which ended
in a mutual, "So long!"