“But where is your father?” asked Sam.  Issy asked nothing.  He merely sat still and listened.

“Why, he’s at Trumet.  At least I suppose he is.  Mrs. Jones—­she’s gone to telephone to him now—­says that he came home this morning with one of those dreadful ‘attacks’ of his.  And after dinner he seemed so sick that, when she went for the doctor, she wired me at Auntie’s to come home.  I didn’t want to come—­you know why—­but I couldn’t let him die alone.  And so I caught the three o’clock train and came.  I knew you’d forgive me.  But it seems that when Mrs. Jones came back with the doctor they found father up and dressed and storming like a crazy man.  He had received some sort of a letter; he wouldn’t say what.  And, in spite of all they could do, he insisted on going out.  And Cap’n Berry—­the depot master—­says he went to Trumet on the afternoon freight.  We must have passed each other on the way.  And I’m so—­But why are you here?  And what were you and Issy doing?  And—­”

Her lover broke in eagerly.  “Then you’re alone now?” he asked.

“Yes, but—­”

“Good!  Your father can’t get a train back from Trumet before to-morrow morning.  I don’t know what this letter was—­but never mind.  Perhaps friend McKay knows more about it.  It may be that Mr. Higgins is waiting now outside the Baptist church.  Gertie, now’s our chance.  You come with me right up to the minister’s.  He’s a friend of mine.  He understands.  He’ll marry us, I know.  Come!  We mustn’t lose a minute.  Your dad may take a notion to drive back.”

He led her off up the lane, she protesting, he urging.  At the corner of the house he turned.

“I say, Is!” he called.  “Don’t you want to come to the wedding?  Seems to me we owe you that, considering all you’ve done to help it along.  Or perhaps you want to stay and fix that compass of yours.”

Issy didn’t answer.  Some time after they had gone he arose from the ground and stumbled home.  That night he put a paper novel into the stove.  Next morning, before going to the depot, he removed an iron spike from the Lady May’s compass box.  The needle swung back to its proper position.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE MOUNTAIN AND MAHOMET

The eleventh of July.  The little Berry house stood high on its joists and rollers, in the middle of the Hill Boulevard, directly opposite the Edwards lot.  Close behind it loomed the big “Colonial.”  Another twenty-four hours, and, even at its one-horse gait, the depot master’s dwelling would be beyond the strip of Edwards fence.  The “Colonial” would be ready to move on the lot, and Olive Edwards, the widow, would be obliged to leave her home.  In fact, Mr. Williams had notified her that she and her few belongings must be off the premises by the afternoon of the twelfth.

The great Williams was in high good-humor.  He chuckled as he talked with his foreman, and the foreman chuckled in return.  Simeon Phinney did not chuckle.  He was anxious and worried, and even the news of Gertie Higgins’s runaway marriage, brought to him by Obed Gott, who—­having been so recently the victim of another unexpected matrimonial alliance—­was wickedly happy over the postmaster’s discomfiture, did not interest him greatly.