“I could not be so mean to him!” said Susanna to herself.  “But perhaps he was tired and hot—­poor Jim!” And aloud she said with dignity:  “I shall have to take this paper—­these plans—­in to Mr. Fairfax, Emma.  I’ll catch the four-twenty.”

“You’ll be dead!” said Emma, sympathetically.

“My head aches,” Mrs. Fairfax admitted briefly.  But when she was upstairs and alone she found herself suddenly giving way to the long deferred burst of tears.

After a while she bathed her eyes, brushed her hair, and substituted a more substantial gown for the pongee.  Then she started out once more, refreshed and more cheerful in spite of herself, and soothed unconsciously by the quiet close of the lovely autumn afternoon.

Her own gateway was separated by a flight of shallow stone steps from the road, and Susanna paused there on her way to the train to gather her skirts safely for the dusty walk.  And while she was standing there she found her gaze suddenly riveted upon a motor-car that, still a quarter of a mile away, was rapidly descend the slope of the hill, its two occupants fairly shaken by its violent and rapid approach.  The road here was not wide, and curved on a sharp grade, and Susanna always found the descent of a large car, like this one, a matter of half-terrified fascination.  But surely with this car there was more than the ordinary danger, she thought, with a sudden sick thumping at her heart.  Surely here was something all wrong!  Surely no sane driver—­

“That man is drunk,” she said, quite aloud.  “He cannot make it!  He can’t possibly—­ah-h-h!”

Her voice broke on a gasp, and she pressed one hand tight over her eyes.  For with swift and terrible precision the accident had indeed come to pass.  The car skidded, turned, hung for a sickening second on one wheel, struck the stone of the roadside fence with a horrible grinding jar and toppled heavily over against the bank.

When Susanna uncovered her eyes again, and before she could move or cry out in the dumb horror that had taken possession of her, she saw a man in golfing wear run from the Porters’ gate opposite; and another motor, in which Susanna recognized the figure of a friend and neighbor, Dr. Whitney, swept up beside the overturned one.  When she ran, as she presently found herself running, to the spot, other men and women had gathered there, drawn from lawns and porches by this sudden projection of tragedy into the gayety of their Saturday afternoon.

“Hurt?” gasped Susanna, joining the group.

“The man is—­dead, Billy says,” said young Mrs. Porter, in lowered tones, with an agitated clutch of Susanna’s arm.  “And, poor thing! she doesn’t realize it, and she keeps asking where her chauffeur is and why he doesn’t come to her!”

“Wouldn’t you think people would have better sense than to keep a man like that!” added another neighbor, Dexter Ellis, with a bitterness born entirely of nervousness.  “He was drunk as a lord!  Young and I were just coming out of my side gate—­”