“About that little girl who ran away?” he said.  “Yes, we have; we were just talking about her.”

“Did you ever hear anything like it?” said Mrs. Lloyd.  “They say they can’t find out where she’s been.  She won’t tell.  Don’t you believe somebody has threatened her if she does?”

Cynthia raised herself and began to speak, but a slight, almost imperceptible gesture from the man beside her stopped her.

“What did you say, Cynthia?”

“There is no accounting for children’s freaks,” said Risley, shortly and harshly.  Mrs. Lloyd was not thin-skinned; such a current of exuberant cordiality emanated from her own nature that she was not very susceptible to any counter-force.  Now, however, she felt vaguely and wonderingly, as a child might have done, that for some reason Lyman Risley was rude to her, and she had a sense of bewildered injury.  Mrs. Lloyd was always, moreover, somewhat anxious as to the relations between Cynthia and Lyman Risley.  She heard a deal of talk about it first and last; and while she had no word of unkind comment herself, yet she felt at times uneasy.  “Folks do talk about Cynthia and Lyman Risley keeping company so long,” she told her husband; “it’s as much as twenty years.  It does seem as if they ought to get married, don’t you think so, Norman?  Do you suppose it is because the property was left that way—­for you know Lyman hasn’t got anything besides what he earns—­or do you suppose it is because Cynthia doesn’t want to marry him?  I guess it is that.  Cynthia never seemed to me as if she would ever care enough about any man to marry him.  I guess that’s it; but I do think she ought to stop his coming there quite so much, especially when people know that about her property.”

Cynthia’s property was hers on condition that her husband took her name if she married, otherwise it was forfeited to her sister’s child.  “Catch a Risley ever taking his wife’s name!” said Mrs. Lloyd.  “Of course Cynthia would be willing to give up the money if she loved him, but I don’t believe she does.  It seems as if Lyman Risley ought to see it would be better for him not to go there so much if they weren’t going to be married.”

So it happened when Risley caught up her question to Cynthia in that peremptory fashion, Mrs. Lloyd felt in addition to the present cause some which had gone before for her grievance.  She addressed herself thereafter entirely and pointedly to Cynthia.  “Did you ever see that little girl, Cynthia?” said she.

“Yes,” replied Cynthia, in a voice so strange that the other woman stared wonderingly at her.

“Ain’t you feeling well, Cynthia?” she asked.

“Very well, thank you,” said Cynthia.