If Olive had been a girl brought up in a gentle-minded household, knowing nothing of the varied life she had lived when a navy girl; sometimes at this school and sometimes at that; sometimes in her native land, and sometimes in the midst of frontier life; sometimes with parents, and sometimes without them; and, had she been less aware from her own experiences and those of others, that this is a world in which you must stand up very stiffly if you do not want to be pushed down; she might have sunk, at least for a time, under all this publicity and blame.  Even the praise had its sting.

But she did not sink.  The liveliness and the fun went out of her, and her face grew hard and her manner quiet.  But she was not quiet within.  She rebelled against the unfairness with which she was treated.  No matter what the newspapers knew or did not know, they should have known, and should have remembered, that she had saved her uncle’s life.  If they had known more they would have been just and kind enough no doubt, but they ought to have been just and kind without knowing more.

Captain Asher would now read no more papers.  But Olive read them all.

Letters still came; one of them from Mr. Easterfield.  But every time a mail arrived there was a disappointment in the toll-gate household.  The captain could scarcely refrain from speaking of his disappointment, for it was a true grief to him that Dick Lancaster had not written a word.  Of course, Olive did not say anything upon the subject, for she had no right to expect such a letter, and she was not sure that she wanted one, but it was very strange that a person who surely was, or had been, somewhat interested in her uncle and herself should have been the only one among her recent associates who showed no interest whatever in what had befallen her.  Even Mr. and Mrs. Fox had written.  She wished they had not written, but, after all, stupidity is sometimes better than total neglect.

“Olive,” said the captain one pleasant afternoon, “suppose we take a drive to Broadstone?  The family is not there, but it may interest you to see the place where I hope your friends will soon be living again.  I can not bear to see you going about so dolefully.  I want to brighten you up in some way.”

“I’d like it,” said Olive promptly.  “Let us go to Broadstone.”

At that moment they heard talking in the tollhouse; then there were some quick steps in the garden; and, almost immediately, Dick Lancaster was in the house and in the room where the captain and his niece were sitting.  He stepped quickly toward them as they rose, and gave Olive his left hand because the captain had seized his right and would not let it go.

“I have been very slow getting here,” he said, looking from one to the other.  “But I would not write, and I have been unconscionably delayed.  I am so proud of you,” he said, looking Olive full in the face, but still holding the captain by the hand.