was like her mother's mouth. Her cool, unhurried
voice was like her mother's, too: "I knew when we started out I'd have
trouble with you. Now I don't intend to have any more. I don't want to
have to tell you again. Take me home."

She had adopted the tone which Green River's self-made gentlewomen like
Mrs. Theodore Burr mistakenly believed to be effective with servants.
The boy beside her gave no sign that it was effective with him. He spoke
softly to the horse again, and flicked at it coaxingly with the whip.

"Neil, I am sorry for you," Judith stated presently, with no sympathy
whatever in her judicial young voice. "I have been awfully good to you."

"Good!"

"Yes, good. I--had to be. Because I knew we didn't have much time. I
knew--this--would have to stop some day. I knew it and you knew it, too.
You always knew it. Well, I've been trying to tell you for a long time
that it had got to stop. I tried, but you wouldn't let me. We're both
getting older, too old for this, and I'm going away next year. And some
things have happened to me, just lately--last week--that made me think.
I've got to be careful. I've got to take care of myself. This has got to
stop now--to-night. I wanted to tell you so. That's why I came;
because----"

"I know why you came."

"Don't be cross. Be good, and turn round now, and take me home. Neil,
I'm not sorry, you know, for--anything. Ever since that first night at
the dance you've been so sweet to me. I'm not sorry. Are you?"

"No."

"How funny your voice sounds. Why don't you turn round?"

He had no explanation to offer. The buggy plunged faster through the
dark, and Judith braced herself in her corner.

"Neil, turn round. Don't you hear me?"

He gave no sign of hearing. The horse swung gallantly into a bit of road
where the stage drivers had never been in the habit of hurrying, a
tricky bit of road, with overhanging rocks jutting out just where you
might graze them at sudden turns, and with abrupt dips into precipitous
hollows. One stretched dark ahead of them now. Judith caught her breath
as they plunged into it, and clutched Neil's arm. He laughed shortly,
and did not shake off her hand. She pulled at his wrist and shook it.

"Upset us if you want to. We'd go together," he urged, with a logic not
to be questioned. "Together, and that suits me, Judy."

"Neil, turn round. Neil!" Judith's voice was shrill with sudden terror
repressed too long, but she struggled to make it stead