“They must have had an accident,” thought Mary, and at first she pictured this as a slight affair which simply called for a few hours’ delay at a local garage—­perhaps the engine had overheated, or the battery had failed.

But when one o’clock struck, and still no word from the absent pair, Mary’s fancies grew more tragic.

By two o’clock she imagined the car overturned at the bottom of some embankment, and both of them badly hurt.  At three o’clock she began to have such dire forebodings that she went and woke up Aunt Cordelia, and was on the point of telephoning Wally’s mother when the welcome rumbling of a car was heard under the porte cochere.  It was Wally and Helen, and though Helen looked pale she had that air of ownership over her apologetic escort which every woman understands.

Mary already divined the end of the story.

“We were coming along all right,” said Wally, “and would have been home before ten.  But when we were about nine miles from nowhere and going over a bad road, I had a puncture.

“Of course that delayed me a little—­to change the wheels—­but when I tried to start the car again, she wouldn’t go.

“I fussed and fixed for a couple of hours, it seems to me, and then I thought I’d better go to the nearest telephone and have a garage send a car out for us.  But Helen, poor girl, was tired and of course I couldn’t leave her there alone.  So I tackled the engine again and just when I was giving up hope, a car came along.

“They couldn’t take us in—­they were filled—­but they promised to wake up a garage man in the next town and send him to the rescue.  It was half past two when he turned up, but it didn’t take him long to find the trouble, and here we are at last.”

He drew a full breath and turned to Helen.

“Of course I wouldn’t have cared a snap,” he said, “if it hadn’t been for poor Helen here.”

“Oh, I don’t mind—­now,” she said.

“I knew it!” thought Mary.  “They’re engaged...”  And though she tried to smile at them both, for some reason which I can never hope to explain, it took an effort.  Wally and Helen were still looking at each other.

“Tired, dear?” he asked.

Helen nodded and glanced at Mary with a look that said, “Did you hear him call me ’Dear’?”

“I think if I were you, I’d go to bed,” continued Wally, all gentle solicitude.  She took an impulsive step toward him.  He kissed her.

“We’re engaged,” he said to Mary.

What Mary said in answer, she couldn’t remember herself when she tried to recall it later, for a strange thought had leaped into her mind, driving out everything else.

“I almost hate to ask,” she thought.  “It would be too dreadful to know.”

But curiosity has always been one of mankind’s fateful gifts, and at the breakfast table next morning, Mary had Wally to herself.

“Oh, Wally,” she said.  “What did the garage man find was the trouble with your car?”