So that was it!  This was the girl of the photograph on John Gilmore’s bedside table.  The girl McKnight expected to see in Richmond the next day, Sunday!  She was on her way back to meet him!  Well, what difference did it make, anyhow?  We had been thrown together by the merest chance.  In an hour or two at the most we would be back in civilization and she would recall me, if she remembered me at all, as an unshaven creature in a red cravat and tan shoes, with a soiled Pullman sheet tied around my neck.  I drew a deep breath.

“Just a twinge,” I said, when she glanced up quickly.  “It’s very good of you to let me know, Miss West.  I have been hearing delightful things about you for three months.”

“From Richey McKnight?” She was frankly curious.

“Yes.  From Richey McKnight,” I assented.  Was it any wonder McKnight was crazy about her?  I dug my heels into the dust.

“I have been visiting near Cresson, in the mountains,” Miss West was saying.  “The person you mentioned, Mrs. Curtis, was my hostess.  We—­we were on our way to Washington together.”  She spoke slowly, as if she wished to give the minimum of explanation.  Across her face had come again the baffling expression of perplexity and trouble I had seen before.

“You were on your way home, I suppose?  Richey spoke about seeing you,” I floundered, finding it necessary to say something.  She looked at me with level, direct eyes.

“No,” she returned quietly.  “I did not intend to go home.  I—­well, it doesn’t matter; I am going home now.”

A woman in a calico dress, with two children, each an exact duplicate of the other, had come quickly down the road.  She took in the situation at a glance, and was explosively hospitable.

“You poor things,” she said.  “If you’ll take the first road to the left over there, and turn in at the second pigsty, you will find breakfast on the table and a coffee-pot on the stove.  And there’s plenty of soap and water, too.  Don’t say one word.  There isn’t a soul there to see you.”

We accepted the invitation and she hurried on toward the excitement and the railroad.  I got up carefully and helped Miss West to her feet.

“At the second pigsty to the left,” I repeated, “we will find the breakfast I promised you seven eternities ago.  Forward to the pigsty!”

We said very little for the remainder of that walk.  I had almost reached the limit of endurance:  with every step the broken ends of the bone grated together.  We found the farm-house without difficulty, and I remember wondering if I could hold out to the end of the old stone walk that led between hedges to the door.

“Allah be praised,” I said with all the voice I could muster.  “Behold the coffee-pot!” And then I put down the grip and folded up like a jack-knife on the porch floor.

When I came around something hot was trickling down my neck, and a despairing voice was saying, “Oh, I don’t seem to be able to pour it into your mouth.  Please open your eyes.”