Oswald had not forgotten. He was waiting at the station entrance, and together they walked out upon the platform. The Chicago express was bulletined fifteen minutes late, and David was thankful for the brief extension of time. There was a thing to be said to Oswald, and, finding no way in which to lead up to it, he plunged bluntly. “Bert, there is something that I want to say--that I’ve got to say--before I leave. You’ve been a mighty good friend to us in this shake-up, and we shall always owe you a lot more than we can pay. But I’m obliged to be a sort of dog in the manger, right here at the last. I have a sister, and she is blind.” “Well?” said Oswald, and his voice was a bit thick. “You know what I ought to say; what I want to say, and can’t. Lucille isn’t like other girls; she can’t be. And yet she is just as human as other girls. You mustn’t go to the house so often, Bert. If you do, there’ll be an explosion some day, and you’ll never get over being sorry.” “I don’t know exactly what you mean,” was the low-spoken reply. “Then I shall have to tell you in so many words, brutal as it may sound. With her affliction, Lucille can’t marry, and she--oh, dammit all--you know what I mean!” “Do I?” queried the young lawyer, in the same thick voice. “Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don’t. You might make it a little plainer, if you care to.” The belated train had evidently made up some of its lost time; it was whistling for Middleboro and the roar of its coming was already filling the air of the calm summer night with thunderous murmurings. “I will make it plainer. The little sister has taken you on as a friend. But at the same time you are the only man outside of the family who has ever taken the trouble to make her life more bearable. Let it stop at that, Bert; for God’s sake, let it stop at that if you don’t want to break her heart!” The train was in; the conductor was calling “All aboard!” and the Pullman porter had opened his vestibule. Oswald crossed the platform with David Vallory in sober silence, but at the hand-gripping instant he found his tongue. “You may go to your job and rest easy, David. I’m the last man on God’s green earth who will ever do anything to break your sister’s heart. Good-by--and let me hear from you.” VI The Henchman The great concrete railroad bridge at Coulee du Sac was nearing completion, and for David Vallory, who had spent a summer, an autumn, and the better part of a winter on the work, the closing scenes of his brief summer stop-over in Middleboro had withdrawn into a past already taking on the characteristics of remoteness.