“Well, Jim’s been off on some sort of a trip,” said Fanny.

“I don’t see anything so very queer about that.”

“Wait till I tell you—­ You must be sure and not breathe a word, even to your mother; you won’t, will you?”

“Fan, you make me mad!  Didn’t I just say I wouldn’t?”

“Well, then; he went with her in the auto; they started about five o’clock in the morning, and Jim didn’t get home till after twelve that night.”

Ellen laughed, with studied indifference.

“Pity they couldn’t have asked us to go along,” she said.  “I’m sure the car’s plenty big enough.”

“I don’t think it was just for fun,” said Fanny.

“You don’t?  What for, then?”

“I asked Jim, and he wouldn’t tell me.”

“When did you ask him?”

“The morning they went.  I came down about half past four:  mother doesn’t get up as early as that, we haven’t much milk to look after now; but I wake up awfully early sometimes, and I’d rather be doing something than lying there wide awake.”

Ellen squeezed Fanny’s arm sympathetically.  She herself had lost no moments of healthy sleep over Jim Dodge’s fancied defection; but she enjoyed imagining herself to be involved in a passionate romance.

“Isn’t it awful to lie awake and think—­and think, and not be able to do a single thing!” she said, with a tragic gesture.

Fanny bent down to look into Ellen’s pretty face.

“Why, Ellen,” she said, “is it as bad as that?  I didn’t suppose you really cared.”

She clasped Ellen’s slender waist closer and kissed her fervently.

Ellen coaxed two shining tears into sparkling prominence on her long lashes.

“Oh, don’t mind me, Fan,” she murmured; “but I can sympathize with you, dear.  I know exactly how you feel—­and to think it’s the same girl!”

Ellen giggled light-heartedly: 

“Anyway, she can’t marry both of them,” she finished.

Fanny was looking away through the boles of the gnarled old trees, her face grave and preoccupied.

“Perhaps I oughtn’t to have told you,” she said.

“Why, you haven’t told me anything, yet,” protested Ellen.  “You’re the funniest girl, Fan!  I don’t believe you know how to—­really confide in anybody.  If you’d tell me more how you feel about him, you wouldn’t care half so much.”

Fanny winced perceptibly.  She could not bear to speak of the secret—­which indeed appeared to be no secret—­she strove daily to bury under a mountain of hard work, but which seemed possessed of mysterious powers of resurrection in the dark hours between sunset and sunrise.

“But there’s nothing to—­to talk about, Ellen,” she said; and in spite of herself her voice sounded cold, almost menacing.

“Oh, very well, if you feel that way,” retorted Ellen.  “But I can tell you one thing—­or, I might tell you something; but I guess I won’t.”