But Roxie stood there, never moving until she could no longer hear even the lightest trace of his footsteps. Then she lifted her eyes to the stars. They smiled back at her. She thought they were like his eyes. Only they were so high--so dizzily far away. They were above the house, above the trees, above even the heights of Caterpillar Ridge, above Green Mountain, which was the highest place she knew about. They were almost as high as God. He lived there among them. And yet the preacher said that He was always near--right around us everywhere. So the stars must be nearer than they looked. So perhaps the eyes of the Prince might be nearer than they seemed. Things could be far away and yet very near. That was confusing. Also it was comforting. The puzzled frown left her face as she pushed open the door and went in. She found her mother busy about her normal tasks and showing no evidence of illness. But the sight, instead of bringing her relief, roused a new fear. “Tom Culley said yuh was tuk sick,” explained Roxie, as her mother observed her entrance with as much surprise as she ever showed about anything. Her emotions had ceased to be more than the ghostly relics of emotions long since dead. She had exhausted them years before. Resignation had taken their place. “I ain’t sick,” she answered with a slow shake of her head. “How cum Tom Culley to say thet?” Her pale eyes squinting from a meager, desiccated face, white as wax, listlessly met the quick young eyes of her daughter. The answer was clear enough to Roxie. It explained the presence of Bud Childers in the middle of the road. The girl turned towards the door. “I’m a-goin’ back,” she said. “Goin’ back?” But Roxie sprang for the latch. If Bud Childers had laid for her such a plot as this, the incident would not end there. He would be waiting for Allston to return. She threw open the door and ran out into the night; straight down the rocky mountain road. And as she ran, she called his name. “Mister Allston! Mister Allston!” There was no answer. Allston, far ahead, was walking fast. CHAPTER VI As ten o’clock came and then eleven, Wilmer found it more and more difficult not to respond to her father’s fears. “We shouldn’t have allowed him to go,” declared Howe. “And yet,” answered the girl, “he’s the sort of man you feel to be capable of going anywhere.” “I don’t doubt his courage,” responded Howe. “But against a man of the type of Childers he needs something more.” “What do you mean, dad?” “He needs to know his man. Childers has no code. If he couldn’t shoot a man in front, he’d shoot him in the back. Such a chap has one idea and only one--to get his man; by fair means, if convenient, by foul, if necessary.” “You don’t think Childers means to--to get him?” “I don’t know anything about it. Apparently the fellow is infatuated with Roxie. If that is so, he’ll resent any interference--particularly on the part of a stranger. I ought to have known better than to let him start.”