“Must have been pretty.  Where did Rose go?”

“It was very quiet there.  It would have been a good place to work, if either of us had been musical, or anything of that sort.”

“Charming,” replied Allison, absently.

“It wasn’t far from town, either.  We could take a train at two o’clock, and reach Holly Springs a little after three.  It was half a mile up the main road from the station, and, as we had no horse, we always walked.”

“Nice walk,” said Allison, dejectedly.

“I have never been back since—­since I was left alone.  Sometimes I have thought my little house ought to have someone to look after it.  A house gets lonely, too, with no one to care for it.”

“I suppose so.  Is Rose coming back?”

“I have often thought of the little Summer cottages, huddled together like frightened children, when the life and laughter had gone and Winter was swiftly approaching.  How cold their walls must be and how empty the heart of a little house, when there is no fire there!  So like a woman, when love has gone out of her life.”

Allison sighed and began to sharpen his pencil.  Madame observed that his hands were trembling.

“I see,” he said.  “I don’t deserve to know where she is, and Rose doesn’t want me chasing after her.  Never mind—­I had it coming to me, I guess.  What a hopeless idiot I’ve been!”

“Yes,” agreed Madame, cordially.  “Carlyle says that ’there is no other entirely fatal person.’”

Something in her tone gave him courage for another question.  “Once for all, Aunt Francesca, will you tell me where Rose is?”

“George Washington was a great man,” Madame observed.  “He never told a lie.  If he had promised not to tell anything, he never told it.”  Then she added, with swift irrelevance, “this used to be a very pleasant time of the year at Holly Springs.”

A great light broke in upon Allison.  “Aunt Francesca!” he cried.  He put his arms around her, lifted her from her chair, and nearly smothered her in a bear-like embrace.  “God bless you!”

“He has,” murmured Madame, disengaging herself.  “My foster son has been a dunce, but his reason is now restored.”

The two o’clock train to Holly Springs did not leave town until three, so Allison waited for an hour in the station, fuming with impatience.  Both Colonel Kent and the Doctor had offered to accompany him, individually or together, but he had brusquely put them aside.

“Don’t worry,” he said.  “My name and address are in my pocket and also inside my hat.  I’ll check my grip and be tenderly considerate of my left hand.  Good-bye.”

When he had gone Colonel Kent anxiously turned to the doctor.  “Where do you suppose—­and why—­”

“Cherchez la femme,” returned the Doctor.

“What makes you think so?  It’s not—­”

“It’s about the only errand a man can go on, and not be willing to take another chap along.  And I’ll bet anything I’ve got, except my girl and my buzz-cart, that it isn’t the fair, false one we met at the hour of her elopement.”