“Jimmy!” she said. “Just keep him from coming tonight. Then tomorrow I’ll tell you the whole thing. And perhaps you’ll think of something to do. But—just tonight—keep him from coming!” Ross made no answer. “Down here, Jimmy—to the left,” she said, presently, and he turned the car down a solitary lane, narrow, scored with ruts of half frozen mud. It had grown so dark now that he turned on the headlights. “There!” she said. “That’s the house. Let me out!” He stopped the car. “Look here!” he began, but she had sprung out, and was hurrying across a field of stubble. He could not let her go alone. He followed her, sick at heart, filled again with that sense of utter solitude, of being cut off from all his fellows, in a desolate and unreal world. His soul revolted against this monstrous adventure, and yet he could not abandon her. She went before him, light, surprisingly sure-footed upon those high heels of hers. For some reason of her own, she had chosen to approach the house from the side, instead of following the curve of the lane. She came to a fence, and climbed it like a cat, and Ross climbed after her. They were in a forlorn garden, where the withered grass stood high, and before them was the sorriest little cottage, battered and discolored by wind and rain, all the shutters closed, not a light, not a curtain, not a sign of life about it. “Look here!” Ross began again. “I’ve got to know—” She ran up the steps to the porch, where a broken rocking-chair began to rock as she brushed it in passing. She opened the door and entered; it was dark in there, but she ran up the stairs as if she knew them well; before he was halfway up, he heard her hurrying footsteps on the floor above, heard doors open and shut. Then a light sprang out in the upper hall, and she stood there, looking down at him. By the unshaded gas jet he could see her face clearly, and it shocked him; such anguish there, such terror. “Gone!” she gasped. “_Gone!_” IX To Ross, with his rigid self-control, it seemed impossible that a human creature could safely endure such violent emotion as hers. She was so fragile; she looked ill, horribly ill, ghastly; he thought she would faint, would fall senseless at his feet. He sprang up the stairs to be with her. “Amy!” he cried. Her dark brows met in a somber frown; she shook her head, waving her forefinger in front of her face; an odd, foreign little gesture. “No!” she said. “Keep quiet! Don’t speak to me. Let me think.” “Think!” said Ross to himself. “I don’t believe you’re capable of it, my girl. But certainly you’re even less capable of listening to any one. Very well; go ahead with your thinking, then; and I’ll wait for the next development.” He lit a cigarette, and leaned against the wall, smoking, not sorry for an interval of peace. “Look at the time!” Amy commanded sharply “You’ll be late getting to the station, unless you hurry. Why didn’t you remind me?”