Spartan young man. “Then suppose you tell me what’s wrong?”

“I can’t, Jimmy,” she answered. Her hand rested on his shoulder, but her head was turned away. “I can’t—just now. Only, oh, Jimmy! Sometimes I wish I were dead! Dead and buried with my darling mother—”

He could think of nothing adequate to say to that, and, once more giving a careful glance at the road, he patted her hand.

“I’m sorry,” he declared gravely.

“I know it’s not fair—not to tell you,” she said. “But—can’t you just help me, Jimmy, and—and not care?”

A curious emotion filled him; a great compassion and a great dread.

“Why not?” he thought. “I don’t want to hear. I don’t want to know. Better let well enough alone.”

But he knew it was not better, and not possible. Not all the pity in the world should make him a blind and ignorant tool. He was in honor bound to ask his question.

“Just this,” he said. “That man—in the housekeeper’s room?”

“Why, what man?” she asked. “I don’t know what you mean.”

His heart sank. Disappointment, and a sort of disgust for this childish lie filled him; he did not want to look at her again. He drove on, down a road which seemed to him endless, like a road in a dream.

The sun was going down quietly, without pomp and glory, only slipping out of sight and drawing with it all the light and color in the world. They passed houses, they passed other cars, and it seemed to him that he and this girl passed through the everyday life about them like ghosts, set apart from their fellows, under a chill shadow.

“Jimmy!” she said, abruptly. “How can you be so horrid! Why don’t you talk? Why can’t you be like—like a real cousin?”

“Perhaps I haven’t had enough practice,” Ross replied.

She did not like this.

“All right, then! Don’t help me! Just go away and leave me to suffer all alone!” she cried. “You’re a heartless—beast! Go away!”

“Just as you please,” said Ross. “Can you drive the car?”

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