Her voice broke again, and the colonel silenced her by putting one hand comfortingly on her knee and by keeping still himself.  His shoulders drooped a little as they walked from the stile toward the house, and Marjorie ran her arm through his: 

“Why, you’re a little tired, aren’t you, Uncle Bob?” she said tenderly, and he did not answer except to pat her hand, against which she suddenly felt his heart throb.  He almost stumbled going up the steps, and deadly pale he sank with a muffled groan into a chair.  With a cry the girl darted for a glass of water, but when she came back, terrified, he was smiling: 

“I’m all right—­don’t worry.  I thought thas sun to-day was going to be too much for me.”

But still Marjorie watched him anxiously, and when the color came back to his face she went behind him and wrapped her arms about his neck and put her mouth to his ear: 

“I’m just a plain little fool, Uncle Bob, and, as Gray says, I talk through my aigrette.  Now, don’t you and mother worry—­don’t worry the least little bit,” and she tightened her arms and kissed him several times on his forehead and cheek.  “I must go now—­and if you don’t take better care of yourself I’m going to come over here and take care of you myself.”

She was in front of him now and looking down fondly; and a wistfulness that was almost childlike had come into the colonel’s face: 

“I wish you could, little Marjorie—­I wish you would.”

He watched her gallop away—­turning to wave her whip to him as she went over the slope, her tears gone and once more radiant and gay--and the sadness of the coming twilight slowly overspread the colonel’s face.  It was the one hope of his life that she would one day come over to take care of him—­and Gray.  On into the twilight he sat still and thoughtful.  It looked serious for her and Gray.  Back his mind flashed to that night of the dance in the mountains, when the four were children, and his wonder then as to what might take place if that mountain boy and girl should have the chance in the world that had already come to them.  He began to wonder how much of her real feeling Marjorie might have concealed—­how much Gray in his letters was keeping back of his.  Such a union was preposterous.  He realized too late now the danger to youth of simple proximity—­he knew the exquisite sensitiveness of Gray in any matter that meant consideration for others and for his own honor, the generous warmhearted impulsiveness of Marjorie, and the appeal that any romantic element in the situation would make to them both.  Perhaps he ought to go to the mountains.  There was much he might say to Gray, but what to Jason, or to Marjorie, with that life-absorbing motive of his own—­and his affairs at such a crisis?  The colonel shook his head helplessly.  He was very tired, and wished he could put the matter off till morning when he was rested and his head was clear, but the questions had sunk talons into his heart and brain that would not be unloosed, and the colonel rose wearily and went within.