The heat broke up the card group soon after, and they
all came out for the night breeze. I had no
more words alone with Alison.
I went back to the Incubator for the night.
We said almost nothing on the way home; there was
a constraint between us for the first time that I
could remember. It was too early for bed, and
so we smoked in the living-room and tried to talk
of trivial things. After a time even those failed,
and we sat silent. It was McKnight who finally
broached the subject.
“And so she wasn’t at Seal Harbor at all.”
“No.”
“Do you know where she was, Lollie?”
“Somewhere near Cresson.”
“And that was the purse—her purse—with
the broken necklace in it?”
“Yes, it was. You understand, don’t
you, Rich, that, having given her my word, I couldn’t
tell you?”
“I understand a lot of things,” he said,
without bitterness.
We sat for some time and smoked. Then Richey
got up and stretched himself. “I’m
off to bed, old man,” he said. “Need
any help with that game arm of yours?”
“No, thanks,” I returned.
I heard him go into his room and lock the door.
It was a bad hour for me. The first shadow
between us, and the shadow of a girl at that.
AT THE FARM-HOUSE AGAIN
McKnight is always a sympathizer with the early worm.
It was late when he appeared. Perhaps, like
myself, he had not slept well. But he was apparently
cheerful enough, and he made a better breakfast than
I did. It was one o’clock before we got
to Baltimore. After a half hour’s wait
we took a local for M-, the station near which the
cinematograph picture had been taken.
We passed the scene of the wreck, McKnight with curiosity,
I with a sickening sense of horror. Back in
the fields was the little farm-house where Alison
West and I had intended getting coffee, and winding
away from the track, maple trees shading it on each
side, was the lane where we had stopped to rest, and
where I had—it seemed presumption beyond
belief now—where I had tried to comfort
her by patting her hand.
We got out at M-, a small place with two or three
houses and a general store. The station was
a one-roomed affair, with a railed-off place at the
end, where a scale, a telegraph instrument and a chair
constituted the entire furnishing.
The station agent was a young man with a shrewd face.
He stopped hammering a piece of wood over a hole
in the floor to ask where we wanted to go.
“We’re not going,” said McKnight,
“we’re coming. Have a cigar?”
The agent took it with an inquiring glance, first
at it and then at us.
“We want to ask you a few questions,”
began McKnight, perching himself on the railing and
kicking the chair forward for me. “Or,
rather, this gentleman does.”
“Wait a minute,” said the agent, glancing
through the window. “There’s a hen
in that crate choking herself to death.”
