He paid Samson Rawdy, who opened his mouth as if to say something, then looked at Carroll’s pale face and changed his mind, getting rather stiffly up on his seat—­he was growing stout—­and driving away.

“Oh, papa!” Charlotte said, slipping her arm through his and nestling close up to him as they went into the house.

Carroll bent down and kissed her.  “Papa’s poor little girl!” he said.  “It was mighty hard on her, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, papa, you are not hurt very badly?”

“Not hurt at all, sweetheart.  I, to put it simply, tumbled down on the ice and hit my head, and was so stunned that I did not come to myself until it was too late for the last train.”

“Oh, papa, where were you?  Did they carry you to a hospital?”

“No, dear.  I was very near a man who used to keep my books before I gave up my office, and he had me carried to his house, which was near by, and he and his sister did everything for me, they and their doctor.”

“They must be such good people!” said Charlotte.

“Such good people that I can never pay them,” said Carroll, in an odd voice.  They had entered the house and were going through the hall.  “Not in other ways than money,” he added, quickly.  “I owe him nothing.”  It was the first time that Carroll had ever attempted to justify himself to his child, but at that moment the sting of thinking that she might suspect that he owed Allbright money was more than he could bear.

When they were in the dining-room, Carroll turned and looked at Charlotte.  “My poor little girl!  What did you think, and what did you do?” said he.

She threw her arms around his neck again and clung to him.  “Oh, papa, when you didn’t come, when the last train went by and you didn’t come, I thought—­”

“Poor little sweetheart!”

“I went down to the six-o’clock train, and then I waited for the next, and then I came home, and I watched, and the telegraph-boy came to tell me there was no telegram, and I had the dinner keeping warm on the back of the range; it was beefsteak cooked that way in the cook-book, and there was a pudding,” said Charlotte, incoherently, and she began to weep against her father’s shoulder.

In reality, the girl’s nerves were nearer the overstrained point now than they had been before.  She was so glad to have her father home, she was so dazed by her new happiness, and there was something about her father’s white face which frightened her in a subtle fashion.  There was a changed meaning in it beside the sick look.

“Poor little girl!” Carroll said again.  “Did you have to stay here alone all night?”

“No, papa.  I stayed just as long as I could, and then I went out, and I ran—­”

“Where, dear?”

“I ran to—­”

Carroll waited.  Charlotte had turned her face as far away from him as she could as she leaned against him, but one ear was burning red.