“Why?”

“Because you would be equal to it, whatever it was.”

“I don’t see why you say that.”  She weakly found comfort in the praise which she might once have resented as patronage.

“I don’t see why I should n’t,” he retorted: 

“Because I am not fit to be trusted at all.”

“Do you mean”—­

“Oh, I haven’t the strength, to mean anything,” she said.  “But I thank you, thank you very much,” she added.  She turned her head away.

“Confound Maynard!” cried the young man.  “I don’t see why he does n’t come.  He must have started four days ago.  He ought to have’ had sense enough to telegraph when he did start.  I did n’t tell his partner to ask him.  You can’t think of everything.  I’ve been trying to find out something.  I’m going over to Leyden, now, to try to wake up somebody in Cheyenne who knows Maynard.”  He looked ruefully at Grace, who listened with anxious unintelligence.  “You’re getting worn out, Miss Breen,” he said.  “I wish I could ask you to go with me to Leyden.  It would do you good.  But my mare’s fallen lame; I’ve just been to see her.  Is there anything I can do for you over there?”

“Why, how are you going?” she asked.

“In my boat,” he answered consciously.

“The same boat?”

“Yes.  I’ve had her put to rights.  She was n’t much damaged.”

She was silent a moment, while he stood looking down at her in the chair into which she had sunk.  “Does it take you long?”

“Oh, no.  It’s shorter than it is by land.  I shall have the tide with me both ways.  I can make the run there and back in a couple of hours.”

“Two hours?”

“Yes.”

A sudden impulse, unreasoned and unreasonable, in which there seemed hope of some such atonement, or expiation, as the same ascetic nature would once have found in fasting or the scourge, prevailed with her.  She rose.  “Mr. Libby,” she panted, “if you will let me, I should like to go with you in your boat.  Do you think it will be rough?”

“No, it’s a light breeze; just right.  You need n’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid.  I should not care if it were rough!  I should not care if it stormed!  I hope it—­I will ask mother to stay with Mrs. Maynard.”

Mrs. Breen had not been pleased to have her daughter in charge of Mrs. Maynard’s case, but she had not liked her giving it up.  She had said more than once that she had no faith in Dr. Mulbridge.  She willingly consented to Grace’s prayer, and went down into Mrs. Maynard’s room, and insinuated misgivings in which the sick woman found so much reason that they began for the first time to recognize each other’s good qualities.  They decided that the treatment was not sufficiently active, and that she should either have something that would be more loosening to the cough, or some application—­like mustard plasters—­to her feet, so as to take away that stuffed feeling about the head.