When more than time enough had elapsed for her return from the town, he started forth with a heavy heart to follow her.  He told old Jane that if for any reason he should be detained in town until late, he would take supper with Mr. Port, and if, although he did not expect this, he should not come back that night, the Ports would know of his whereabouts.  He did not take his horse and buggy because he thought it would be in his way.  If he met Olive in the road he could more easily stop and talk to her if he were walking than if he had a horse to take care of.

“I hope you’re not runnin’ after Miss Olive,” said old Jane.

The captain did not wish his old servant to imagine that it was necessary for him to run after his niece, and so he answered rather quickly:  “Of course not.”  Then he set off toward the town.  He did not walk very fast, for if he met Olive he would rather have a talk with her on the road than in Glenford.

He walked on and on, not with his eyes on the smooth surface of the pike, but looking out afar, hoping that he might soon see the figure of a girl on a bicycle; and thus it was that he passed the entrance to the shunpike without noticing that a bicycle track turned into it.

Olive struggled on, and the road did not improve.  She worked hard with her body, but still harder with her mind.  It seemed to her as though everything were endeavoring to crush her, and that it was almost succeeding.  If she had been in her own room, seated, or walking the floor, indignation against her uncle would have given her the same unnatural vigor and energy which had possessed her when she read her father’s letter; but it is impossible to be angry when one is physically tired and depressed, and this was Olive’s condition now.  Once she dismounted, sat down on a piece of rock, and cried.  The rest was of service to her, but she could not stay there long; the road was too lonely.  She must push on.  So on she pressed, sometimes walking, and sometimes on her wheel, the pedals apparently growing stiffer at every turn.  Slight mishaps she did not mind, but a fear began to grow upon her that she would never be able to reach Broadstone at all.  But after a time—­a very long time it seemed—­the road grew more level and smooth; and then ahead she saw the white surface of the turnpike shining as it passed the end of her road.  When she should emerge on that smooth, hard road it could not be long, even if she went slowly, before she reached home.  She was still some fifty yards from the pike when she saw a man upon it, walking southward.

As Dick Lancaster passed the end of the road he lifted his head, and looked along it.  It was strange that he should do so, for since he had started on his homeward walk he had not raised his eyes from the ground.  He had reached Broadstone soon after luncheon, before Olive had left on her wheel, and had passed rather a stupid time, playing tennis with Claude Locker, he had seen but little of Mrs. Easterfield, whose mind was evidently occupied.  Once she had seemed about to take him into her confidence, but had suddenly excused herself, and had gone into the house.  When the game was finished Locker advised him to go home.