The Judge looked at her, coughed, and then said hastily:  “Oh, nothing in particular; every one of us has troubles, I suppose.  But, Mary, if—­if you find that the story is true and—­ahem—­a little money might help to—­er—­tide the firm over—­why, I—­I think perhaps that it might be—­ahem—­arranged so that—­”

He seemed to be having difficulty in finishing the sentence.  Mary did not wait to hear the end.

“Thank you, Judge,” she said quickly.  “Thank you, but I am hoping it may not be so bad as that.  I am going back there, you know, and—­well, as Uncle Shadrach would say, we may save the ship yet.  At any rate, we won’t call for help until the last minute.”

Judge Baxter regarded her with admiration.

“Shadrach and Zoeth are rich in one respect,” he declared; “they’ve got you.  But it is a wicked shame that you must give up your school and your opportunities to—­”

She held up her hand.

“Please don’t!” she begged.  “If you knew how glad I am to be able to do something, if it is only to give up!”

The car and Jim were at the door a few minutes later and Mary, having said good-by to the Judge and promised faithfully to keep him posted as to events at home, climbed into the tonneau and was whizzed away.  Jim, the driver, after a few attempts at conversation, mainly concerning the “unseasonableness” of the weather, finding responses few and absently given, relapsed into silence.  Silence was what Mary desired, silence and speed, and Jim obliged with the latter.

Over the road by which, a dozen years before, she had driven in the old buggy she now rode again.  Then, as now, she wondered what she should find at her journey’s end.  Here, however, the resemblance ceased, for whereas then she looked forward, with a child’s anticipations, to nothing more definite than new sights and new and excitingly delightful adventures, now she saw ahead—­what?  Great care and anxiety and trouble certainly, these at the best; and at the worst, failure and disappointment and heartbreak.  And behind her she was leaving opportunity and the pleasant school life and friends, leaving them forever.

She was leaving Crawford, too, leaving him without a word of explanation.  She had had no time to write even a note.  Mrs. Wyeth, after protesting vainly against her guest’s decision to leave for the Cape by the earliest train in the morning, had helped to pack a few essential belongings; the others she was to pack and send later on, when she received word to do so.  The three, Mrs. Wyeth, Miss Pease, and Mary, had talked and argued and planned until almost daylight.  Then followed an hour or two of uneasy sleep, a hurried breakfast, and the rush to the train.  Mary had not written Crawford; the shock of what she had been told at the Howes’ and her great anxiety to see Judge Baxter and learn if what she had heard was true had driven even her own love story from her mind.  Now she remembered