“I wish I were—­so I might use it all for Socialism!”

“You could make a fortune, if you’d work for some paper or magazine—­some regular one, I mean, not Socialist.”

He shook his head.

“Dead sea fruit,” he answered.  “Fairy gold, fading in the clutch, worthless through and through.  No, if my work has any merit, it’s all for Socialism, now and ever!”

Silence again.  Neither now found a word to say, but their eyes met and read each other; and a kind of solemn hush seemed to lie over their hearts.

Then, as they sat there, looking each at each—­for now the girl had raised herself on the crude bed and was supporting herself with one hand—­a sudden sound of a motor, on the road, awakened them from their musing.

Came the raucous wail of a siren.  Then the engine-exhaust ceased; and a voice, raised in some annoyance, hailed loudly through the maple-grove: 

“Hello!  Hello?  What’s wrong here?”

Gabriel stepped to the sugar-house door: 

“Here!  Come here!” he shouted in a ringing voice that echoed wildly from between his hollowed palms.

As the motorist still sat there, uncomprehending, Gabriel made his way toward the road.

“Accident here,” said he.  “Girl in here, injured.  Can you take her to the nearest town, at once?  She needs a doctor.”

Instantly the man was out of his car, and hastening toward Gabriel.

“Eh?  What?” he asked.  “Anything serious?”

In a few words, Gabriel told him the outlines of the tale.

“The quicker you get the girl to a town, and let her have a doctor and communication with her family, the better,” he concluded.

“Right!  I’ll do all in my power,” said the other, a rather stout, well-to-do, vulgar-looking man.

“Good!  This way, then!”

The man followed Gabriel to the sugar-house.  They found the girl already on her feet, standing there a bit unsteadily, but with determination to be game, in every feature.

Five minutes later she was in the new-comer’s car, which had been turned around and now was headed back toward Haverstraw.  The shawl and robe serving her as wraps, she was made comfortable in the tonneau.

“Think you can stand it, all right?” asked Gabriel, as he took in his the hand she extended.  “In half an hour, you’ll be under a doctor’s care, and your father will be on his way toward you.”

She nodded, and for a second tightened the grasp of her hand.

“I—­I’m not even going to know who you are?” she asked, a strange tone in her voice.

“No,” he answered.  “And now, good luck, and good-bye!”

“Good-bye,” she echoed, her voice almost inaudible.  “I—­I won’t forget you.”

He made no answer, but only smiled in a peculiar way.

Then, as the car rolled slowly forward, their hands separated.

Gabriel, bareheaded and with level gaze, stood there in the middle of the great highway, looking after her.  A minute, under the darkening arches of the forest road, he saw her, still.  Then the car swung round a bend, and vanished.