since she was able to sit up—­and I reckon she wants to tell us she’s sorry for what happened.  They expect to get off by the end o’ the week, and I reckon she wants to feel she’s done what she could to kind o’ make up.  Anyway, that’s what he said.  I ’phoned him again about Edith, and he said it wouldn’t disturb Sibyl, because she’d been expectin’ it; she was sure all along it was goin’ to happen; and, besides, I guess she’s got all that foolishness pretty much out of her, bein’ so sick.  But what I thought was, no use bein’ rough with her, papa—­I expect she’s suffered a good deal—­and I don’t think we’d ought to be, on Roscoe’s account.  You’ll—­you’ll be kind o’ polite to her, won’t you, papa?”

He mumbled something which was smothered under the coverlet he had pulled over his head.

“What?” she said, timidly.  “I was just sayin’ I hoped you’d treat Sibyl all right when she comes, this afternoon.  You will, won’t you, papa?”

He threw the coverlet off furiously.  “I presume so!” he roared.

She departed guiltily.

But if he had accepted her proffered wager that Bibbs would go to church with Mary Vertrees that morning, Mrs. Sheridan would have lost.  Nevertheless, Bibbs and Mary did certainly set out from Mr. Vertrees’s house with the purpose of going to church.  That was their intention, and they had no other.  They meant to go to church.

But it happened that they were attentively preoccupied in a conversation as they came to the church; and though Mary was looking to the right and Bibbs was looking to the left, Bibbs’s leftward glance converged with Mary’s rightward glance, and neither was looking far beyond the other at this time.  It also happened that, though they were a little jostled among groups of people in the vicinity of the church, they passed this somewhat prominent edifice without being aware of their proximity to it, and they had gone an incredible number of blocks beyond it before they discovered their error.  However, feeling that they might be embarrassingly late if they returned, they decided that a walk would make them as good.  It was a windless winter morning, with an inch of crisp snow over the ground.  So they walked, and for the most part they were silent, but on their way home, after they had turned back at noon, they began to be talkative again.

“Mary,” said Bibbs, after a time, “am I a sleep-walker?”

She laughed a little, then looked grave.  “Does your father say you are?”

“Yes—­when he’s in a mood to flatter me.  Other times, other names.  He has quite a list.”

“You mustn’t mind,” she said, gently.  “He’s been getting some pretty severe shocks.  What you’ve told me makes me pretty sorry for him, Bibbs.  I’ve always been sure he’s very big.”

“Yes.  Big and—­blind.  He’s like a Hercules without eyes and without any consciousness except that of his strength and of his purpose to grow stronger.  Stronger for what?  For nothing.”