“They might have belonged to her ancestors, and she have been taking them home for burial,” Hubert suggested.

Mr. Barrett chuckled in a manner which suggested the composer in him had not entirely ousted the boy.

“Anyway, she is short a skull.  I sent out, the next day, and had it brought to me.  I have it yet.”

“Did she hit you?” Theodora asked.

“Hit me!  I should think she did.  She was large, and she came at me with a good deal of force.  The last I remember, I felt the crash, and I knew I had had the worst of it.”  He rubbed his arm sympathetically at the recollection.

“What became of you?” Mrs. McAlister inquired.  “Did she pick you up and carry you home?”

“Not she.  She was an Amazon, not a Valkyrie within hailing distance of Valhalla.”

“Who was she?” Theodora asked.  “The story ought to have a sequel.”

“It hasn’t.  It ended in mystery.  The girl vanished into thin air, and a man, driving by, found me lying in the mud, with a skull on one side of me and a white sailor hat on the other, neither of them my property.”

“Just rode away and left you with a compound fracture?” The doctor’s tone was incredulous.

“Apparently, for she was never heard of again; at least, I never found out who she was.  It was very funny and very unromantic; but it laid me up for a few weeks, and my arm doesn’t grow strong as fast as it should, so I have to be careful of it.  No swimming or golf for me, this year.  Meanwhile, I am waiting to hear of a buxom damsel who lacks one skull and one white straw Knox hat, size six and one-eighth.  Then, when I meet her, I shall take my vengeance.”

“I hope you will find her,” the doctor said vindictively.  “If one of my daughters had done such a thing, I would disown her.  Babe, it is growing chilly.  I wish you’d bring out some rugs.”

But Phebe had vanished from her seat in the doorway.

The full moon was laying a silvery path across the restless waves, when Gifford Barrett finally rose to go.  There was a cordial exchange of farewells, of good wishes for the coming winter, of hopes of another meeting, yet Mr. Barrett was not quite content, as he slowly walked away to his hotel Mrs. Farrington’s cordiality and Cicely’s evident woe at his departure could not quite atone for the lack of a word and a glance of friendly good-bye from Phebe.  One’s liking is not altogether a matter of free will.  In spite of himself, Gifford Barrett liked the blunt, outspoken, pugnacious Phebe far better than the girls whose honeyed words and ways he had found so cloying.

Farewell parties are all the fashion at Qantuck station and few people are allowed to depart, unattended.  However, Mr. Barrett’s fame, and his manifest wish to hold himself aloof from the people about him had had their effect, and he went trudging down to the station the next afternoon quite by himself.  On the platform, to his surprise, he found Mrs. Holden and Mac waiting for him.