--the one down by the creek, you know? Well, something
happened--the bank on which it stood caved in, in some way, and the
rear wall collapsed, and from all I can understand there was quite a
wreck, quite a lot of damage, for he had it crammed full of winter
goods." She paused and looked intently at Mary Louise with eyes that
were visualizing the events of the night before. "Well, to continue.
It seems that someone with a lantern, investigating the place around
the back, ran across poor Joseph lying in the creek in the water, with
one leg doubled up under him. He told the man he had fallen off the
bridge. That was all he said. Just what he could have been doing there
at such a time I cannot imagine. It seems that he had been working
with a road-construction company about three miles out on the road to
Guests. I found that out from a perfect stranger." She paused again
and the line of her mouth took on a grimmer straightness. "One of the
men, who brought him in--a great rough boor he was--had the audacity
to suggest that Joseph was around there seeing what he could pick up.
I silenced him quickly enough. But can you imagine what brought him to
such a place at such a time?"

Mary Louise drew herself together in an odd little shiver. "Some
strange things can happen by coincidence, Mrs. Mosby. Was he badly
hurt?"

"Fractured his left leg just below the knee, Dr. Withers says--poor
Joseph! He's been an ambitious boy. So anxious to get ahead, and so
self-sufficient. I feel right guilty about Joseph." She shook her head
dolorously.

"But there's no real danger, is there?" broke in Mary Louise, her
heart momentarily sinking.

"No. I suppose not. He is terribly run down. Like a ghost he looked
when they carried him in last night, his eyes staring out before him
all dumb and suffering. He must have been in that ice-cold water
almost an hour before they found him. I might have been doing things
for him all this time--looking after him--but you know how things have
been in this house."

The cold wall of her reserve seemed to be gradually letting down.
Never before had she ever so much as alluded to the break in her
family's fortunes. Mary Louise felt an odd, lifting feeling of
hope--tremulous but dawning hope.

"Mrs. Mosby," she said. "Excuse me for speaking about something that
is not my affair, but"--she hesitated and gazed at the polished marble
slab of the hall tree--"it's only because I've known Joe so well, for
such