“Thank you for bringing me home, Mr. Sheridan,” said Mary, stiffly.  She did not offer her hand.  “Good night.”

“Good night,” Bibbs said in response, and, turning with her, walked beside her to the door.  Mary made that a short walk; she almost ran.  Realization of the queerness of their drive was growing upon her, beginning to shock her; she stepped aside from the light that fell through the glass panels of the door and withheld her hand as it touched the old-fashioned bell-handle.

“I’m quite safe, thank you,” she said, with a little emphasis.  “Good night.”

“Good night,” said Bibbs, and went obediently.  When he reached the street he looked back, but she had vanished within the house.

Moving slowly away, he caromed against two people who were turning out from the pavement to cross the street.  They were Roscoe and his wife.

“Where are your eyes, Bibbs?” demanded Roscoe.  “Sleep-walking, as usual?”

But Sibyl took the wanderer by the arm.  “Come over to our house for a little while, Bibbs,” she urged.  “I want to—­”

“No, I’d better—­”

“Yes.  I want you to.  Your father’s gone to bed, and they’re all quiet over there—­all worn out.  Just come for a minute.”

He yielded, and when they were in the house she repeated herself with real feeling:  “‘All worn out!’ Well, if anybody is, you are, Bibbs!  And I don’t wonder; you’ve done every bit of the work of it.  You mustn’t get down sick again.  I’m going to make you take a little brandy.”

He let her have her own way, following her into the dining-room, and was grateful when she brought him a tiny glass filled from one of the decanters on the sideboard.  Roscoe gloomily poured for himself a much heavier libation in a larger glass; and the two men sat, while Sibyl leaned against the sideboard, reviewing the episodes of the day and recalling the names of the donors of flowers and wreaths.  She pressed Bibbs to remain longer when he rose to go, and then, as he persisted, she went with him to the front door.  He opened it, and she said: 

“Bibbs, you were coming out of the Vertreeses’ house when we met you.  How did you happen to be there?”

“I had only been to the door,” he said.  “Good night, Sibyl.”

“Wait,” she insisted.  “We saw you coming out.”

“I wasn’t,” he explained, moving to depart.  “I’d just brought Miss Vertrees home.”

“What?” she cried.

“Yes,” he said, and stepped out upon the porch, “that was it.  Good night, Sibyl.”

“Wait!” she said, following him across the threshold.  “How did that happen?  I thought you were going to wait while those men filled the—­ the—­” She paused, but moved nearer him insistently.

“I did wait.  Miss Vertrees was there,” he said, reluctantly.  “She had walked away for a while and didn’t notice that the carriages were leaving.  When she came back the coupe waiting for me was the only one left.”