disconcerted Alice, she had a simple woman’s strong faith in coincidence, and she felt, she told George, that the Lord would not let this opportunity for a reconciliation go by.  Mrs. Valentine had seen Warren Gregory now, more than once, and far more potent than any argument that he might have made was his silence, his most unexpected and unnatural silence.  There was no explanation; indeed Warren had little to say on any subject in these days.  He liked to come now and then, in the evening, to the Valentine house, but he would not dine there, and confined his remarks almost entirely to answers to George.  Physically, Alice thought him shockingly changed.

“He is simply broken,” she said to George, in something like fright.  “I didn’t know human beings could change that way.  Warren--who used to be so positive!  Why, he’s almost timid!”

She did not tell Rachael this, and George insisted that, while Rachael and the boys were at the house, Warren must be warned to keep away; so that Alice had frail enough material with which to build her dreams.  Nevertheless, she dreamed.

It was finally arranged that Rachael and little Jim should go up to town on a certain Monday with Alice; that Rachael should make various engagements then, as to storage, packing, and such matters as the care of the piano and the car, for the winter.  Then Jim, for the first time in his life, would stay away from his mother overnight with Aunt Alice, Rachael returning to Clark’s Hills to bring Mary and Derry up the next day in the car.  Jim was to go to the dentist, and to get shoes; there were several excellent reasons why it seemed wise to have him await his mother and brother in town rather than make the long trip twice in one day.  Mary smuggled Derry out of sight when the Monday morning came, and Rachael and her oldest son went away with the Valentines in the car.

It was a fresh, sweet morning in the early winter, and both women, furred to the eyes, enjoyed the trip.  The children, snuggled in between them, chattered of their own affairs, and Rachael interrupted her inexhaustible talk with Alice only to ask a question of the driver now and then.

“I shall have to bring my own car over this road to-morrow, Kane,” she explained.  “I have never been at the wheel myself before in all the times I have done it.”

“Mar-r-tin does be knowin’ every step of the way,” suggested Kane.

“But Martin hasn’t been with me this summer,” the lady smiled.

“I thought I saw him runnin’ the docther’s car yesterda’ week,” mused Kane who was a privileged character.  “Well,’tis not hard, Mrs. Gregory.  The whole place is plasthered wid posts.  But the thing of it is, ma’am,” he added, after a moment, turning back toward her without taking his eyes from the road, “there does be a big storm blowin’ up.  Look there, far over there, how black it is.”

“But that won’t break to-day?” Rachael said uneasily, thinking of Derry.