The other looked at her with a smoldering flush rising through the ashes of her gray face.  “It wasn’t that—­I didn’t suppose you’d be afraid—­I—­I just thought I’d like to go a ways with you,” she repeated, bringing out the words confusedly and with obvious difficulty. “I won’t make you late,” she added, as if guessing the girl’s thoughts.  She put a thin hand on Sylvia’s arm and drew her rapidly along the driveway.  For a moment they walked in silence.  Then, “How soon will you reach home?” she asked.

“Oh, about a quarter to ten—­the Interurban gets into La Chance at nine-fifteen, and it’s about half an hour across town on the Washington Street trolley.”

“In less than two hours!” cried Mrs. Fiske wildly.  “In less than two hours!”

Seeing no cause for wonder in her statement, and not welcoming at all this unsought escort, Sylvia made no answer.  There was another silence, and then, looking in the starlight at her companion, the girl saw with consternation that the quiet tears were running down her cheeks.  She stopped short, “Oh ... oh!” she cried.  She caught up the other’s hand in a bewildered surprise.  She had not the faintest idea what could cause her hostess’ emotion.  She was horribly afraid she would lose the trolley.  Her face painted vividly her agitation and her impatience.

Mrs. Fiske drew back her hand and wiped her eyes with her palm.  “Well, I must be going back,” she said.  She looked dimly at the girl’s face, and suddenly threw her arms about Sylvia’s neck, clinging to her.  She murmured incoherent words, the only ones which Sylvia could make out being, “I can’t—­I can’t—­I can’t!”

What it was she could not do, remained an impenetrable mystery to Sylvia, for at that moment she turned away quickly, and went back up the driveway, her face in her hands.  Sylvia hesitated, penetrated, in spite of her absorption in her own affairs, by a vague pity, but hearing in the distance the clang of the trolley-car’s bell, she herself turned and ran desperately down the driveway.  She reached the public road just in time to stop the heavy car, and to swing herself lightly on, to all appearances merely a rather unusually well-set-up, fashionably dressed young lady, presenting to the heterogeneous indifference of the other passengers in the car even a more ostentatiously abstracted air than is the accepted attitude for young ladies traveling alone.  One or two of her fellow voyagers wondered at the deep flush on her face, but forgot it the next moment.  It was a stain which was not entirely to fade from Sylvia’s face and body for many days to come.

CHAPTER XX

“BLOW, WIND; SWELL, BILLOW; AND SWIM, BARK!”