It so happened that he had to go no farther than to the office bunk car. The door was open and he went in. David Vallory was sitting behind the small mapping-table, checking dimensions on a set of blue-prints. At the sound of Oswald’s footsteps he looked up with a scowl of impatience, and his greeting was a challenge. “Oh, it’s you, is it? I’ve been thinking it was about time you were showing up. When do you start back to Middleboro?” Oswald ignored the ungracious demand and said what he had been sent to say. “Miss Virginia is at the hotel, and she wishes to see you.” “What for?” “I didn’t inquire. She asked me to find you and deliver her message. I have done both.” “I can’t go just now; I’m, busy.” “Then I’ll wait for you,” said Oswald coolly, and he sat down on Plegg’s bunk, found a cigarette in his pocket case and lighted it. In sheer perversity, as it seemed to the young lawyer, David went on shuffling the blue-prints and making figures on a pad under his hand. Oswald waited in silence and in due time had his reward. “Be half-way decent about it, Bert, and tell me what I’m wanted for,” said the figure-maker, looking up suddenly from his work. “She has Cumberleigh and Wishart; aren’t they enough?” Oswald’s smile was a palpable easing of strains. If David’s malady were nothing worse than a fit of jealousy, it was not necessarily incurable. “I was wondering, before I came out here, what Vinnie might be doing to you,” he said. “You wrote us that she and her father were here, if you remember.” “What she did to me was done more than a year ago, if you care to know. But you haven’t answered my question. What does she want of me this morning?” “Honestly, I don’t know, David.” “Where did you see her?” “In the hotel lobby; she was on her way to the breakfast-room, I think.” “And the other two?” “Cumberleigh has gone to climb Qojogo with a sunrise party, and Wishart hasn’t turned out yet. Half of the time he is never visible before noon.” “What did she say?” “She asked first if I had heard of the accident in the tunnel last night.” Once more David Vallory bent over the table and busied himself with the figure-making. “You’ve heard of it, I suppose?” he offered, without looking up. “Only in passing. The hotel clerk told me that a man was hurt; in one of the blasts, I think he said.” David pushed his work aside as one who faces the guns only because he must. “Let’s go,” he consented shortly; and together they walked through the yard and climbed the ridge. Miss Virginia was waiting on one of the porches when the pair crossed the painfully cared-for bit of greensward in front of the Inn. Oswald, telling himself that he had done his part, went on through to the breakfast-room, leaving David to fight his battle--if there were to be a battle--alone. The young woman’s first question was as direct as it was unexpected.