Her piquant, beautiful face was half hidden in the collar of the great fur coat she had worn on boarding the train, and her cheeks were ruddy with the bite of the crisp air. 

 "You see before you a castaway," she volunteered, smiling. 

 He felt it necessary to take the same tone.  "A castaway?" he questioned.  "Cast away by whom?" 

 "By Mr. Avery, if you must know, though your implication that anybody should have cast me away—anybody at all, Mr. Eaton—is unpleasant." 

 "There was no implication; it was simply inquiry." 

 "You should have put it, then, in some other form; you should have asked how I came to be in so surprising a position." 

 "'How,' in this part of the country, Miss Dorne, is not regarded as a question, but merely as a form of salutation," he bantered.  "It was formerly employed by the Indian aborigines inhabiting these parts, who exchanged 'How's' when passing each other on the road. If I had said 'How,' you might simply have replied 'How,' and I should have been under the necessity of considering the incident closed." 

 She laughed.  "You do not wish it to be closed." 

 "Not till I know more about it." 

 "Very well; you shall know more. Mr. Avery brought me out to take a walk. He remembered, after bringing me as far as this, that we had not asked my father whether he had any message to be sent from here or any commission to execute; so he went back to find out. I have now waited so many minutes that I feel sure it is my father who has detained him. The imperfectly concealed meaning of what I am telling you is that I consider that Mr. Avery, by his delay, has forfeited his right. The further implication—for I do imply things, Mr. Eaton—is that you cannot very well avoid offering to take the post of duty he has abandoned." 

 "You mean walk with you?" 

 "I do." 

 He slipped his hand inside her arm, sustaining her slight, active body against the wind which blew strongly through the station and scattered over them snow-flakes blown from the roofs of the cars, as they walked forward along the train. Her manner had told him that she meant to ignore her resentment of the morning; but as, turning, they commenced to walk briskly up and down the platform, he found he 

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