“Don’t be surprised,” he said.  “Truth is, in a way it’s sort of on business I looked in here.  It’ll only take a minute, I expect.”

“I’m sorry,” said Mary.  “I hoped you’d come because we’re neighbors.”

He chuckled.  “Neighbors!  Sometimes people don’t see so much o’ their neighbors as they used to.  That is, I hear so—­lately.”

“You’ll stay long enough to sit down, won’t you?”

“I guess I could manage that much.”  And they sat down, facing each other and not far apart.

“Of course, it couldn’t be called business, exactly,” he said, more gravely.  “Not at all, I expect.  But there’s something o’ yours it seemed to me I ought to give you, and I just thought it was better to bring it myself and explain how I happened to have it.  It’s this—­this letter you wrote my boy.”  He extended the letter to her solemnly, in his left hand, and she took it gently from him.  “It was in his mail, after he was hurt.  You knew he never got it, I expect.”

“Yes,” she said, in a low voice.

He sighed.  “I’m glad he didn’t.  Not,” he added, quickly—­“not but what you did just right to send it.  You did.  You couldn’t acted any other way when it came right down to it.  There ain’t any blame comin’ to you—­you were above-board all through.”

Mary said, “Thank you,” almost in a whisper, and with her head bowed low.

“You’ll have to excuse me for readin’ it.  I had to take charge of all his mail and everything; I didn’t know the handwritin’, and I read it all—­once I got started.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“Well”—­he leaned forward as if to rise—­“I guess that’s about all.  I just thought you ought to have it.”

“Thank you for bringing it.”

He looked at her hopefully, as if he thought and wished that she might have something more to say.  But she seemed not to be aware of this glance, and sat with her eyes fixed sorrowfully upon the floor.

“Well, I expect I better be gettin’ back to the office,” he said, rising desperately.  “I told—­I told my partner I’d be back at two o’clock, and I guess he’ll think I’m a poor business man if he catches me behind time.  I got to walk the chalk a mighty straight line these days—­with that fellow keepin’ tabs on me!”

Mary rose with him.  “I’ve always heard you were the hard driver.”

He guffawed derisively.  “Me?  I’m nothin’ to that partner o’ mine.  You couldn’t guess to save your life how he keeps after me to hold up my end o’ the job.  I shouldn’t be surprised he’d give me the grand bounce some day, and run the whole circus by himself.  You know how he is—­once he goes at a thing!”

“No,” she smiled.  “I didn’t know you had a partner.  I’d always heard—­”

He laughed, looking away from her.  “It’s just my way o’ speakin’ o’ that boy o’ mine, Bibbs.”

He stood then, expectant, staring out into the hall with an air of careless geniality.  He felt that she certainly must at least say, “How is Bibbs?” but she said nothing at all, though he waited until the silence became embarrassing.