“And has he started?” Grace asked.

“I heard from his partner.  Maynard was at the ranch.  His partner had gone for him.”

“Then he will soon be here,” she said.

“He will, if telegraphing can bring him.  I sat up half the night with the operator.  She was very obliging when she understood the case.”

“She?” reputed Grace, with a slight frown.

“The operators are nearly all women in the country.”

“Oh!” She looked grave.  “Can they trust young girls with such important duties?”

“They did n’t in this instance,” relied Libby.  “She was a pretty old girl.  What made you think she was young?”

“I don’t know.  I thought you said she was young.”  She blushed, and seemed about to say more, but she did not.

He waited, and then he said, “You can tell Mrs. Maynard that I telegraphed on my own responsibility, if you think it’s going to alarm her.”

“Well,” said Grace, with a helpless sigh.

“You don’t like to tell her that,” he suggested, after a moment, in which he had watched her.

“How do you know?”

“Oh, I know.  And some day I will tell you how—­if you will let me.”

It seemed a question; and she did not know what it was that kept her—­silent and breathless and hot in the throat.  “I don’t like to do it,” she said at last.  “I hate myself whenever I have to feign anything.  I knew perfectly well that you did n’t say she was young,” she broke out desperately.

“Say Mrs. Maynard was young?” he asked stupidly.

“No!” she cried.  She rose hastily from the bench where she had been sitting with him.  “I must go back to her now.”

He mounted to his buggy, and drove thoughtfully away at a walk.

The ladies, whose excited sympathies for Mrs. Maynard had kept them from the beach till now, watched him quite out of sight before they began to talk of Grace.

“I hope Dr. Breen’s new patient will be more tractable,” said Mrs. Merritt.  “It would be a pity if she had to give him up, too, to Dr. Mulbridge.”

Mrs. Scott failed of the point.  “Why, is Mr. Libby sick?”

“Not very,” answered Mrs. Merritt, with a titter of self-applause.

“I should be sorry,” interposed Mrs. Alger authoritatively, “if we had said anything to influence the poor thing in what she has done.”

“Oh, I don’t think we need distress ourselves about undue influence!” Mrs. Merritt exclaimed.

Mrs. Alger chose to ignore the suggestion.  “She had a very difficult part; and I think she has acted courageously.  I always feel sorry for girls who attempt anything of that kind.  It’s a fearful ordeal.”

“But they say Miss Breen was n’t obliged to do it for a living,” Mrs. Scott suggested.

“So much the worse,” said Mrs. Merritt.

“No, so much the better,” returned Mrs. Alger.

Mrs. Merritt, sitting on the edge of the piazza, stooped over with difficulty and plucked a glass-straw, which she bit as she looked rebelliously away.