The men looked at one another. There was a moment of sickening silence; not so much as a leaf whirled in the gutter; it was broken by a great cheer from the assembled hundreds of workmen farther up the street, followed by a conglomerate of hootings, cat-calls, yells and falsetto hoorays from the fringe of small boys. The faces of the three men in front of the post-office grew white at their unspoken thought. Each waited for the other. "His mother--" said Emlie at last. Elmer Wiggins' lips trembled. "You must tell her, Colonel--she mustn't hear it this way--" "My God, how can I!" The Colonel's voice broke, but only for a second, then he braced himself to his martyrdom. "You're right; she mustn't hear it from any one but me--telephone up at once, will you, Elmer, that I'm coming up to see her on an important matter?--Emlie, you'll drive me up in your trap--we can get there before the men have a chance to get home--keep a watch on the doings here in the town, Elmer, and telephone me if there's any trouble--there's Romanzo coming now, I suppose he's got word from the office--if you happen to see Father Honore, tell him where I am, he will help--" He stepped into the trap that had been hitched in front of the drug store, and Emlie took the reins. Elmer Wiggins reached up his hand to the Colonel, who gripped it hard. "Yes, Elmer," he said in answer to the other's mute question, "this is one of the days when a man, who is a man, may wish he'd never been born--" They were off, past the surging crowds who were now thronging the entire street, past The Bow, and over the bridge on their way to The Gore. XI "Run on ahead, girlies," said Aileen to the twins who were with her for their annual checkerberry picnic, "I'll be down in a few minutes." They were on the edge of the quarry woods which sheltered the Colonel's outlying sheep pastures and protected from the north wind the two sheepfolds that were used for the autumn and early spring. Dulcie and Doosie, obedient to Aileen's request, raced hand in hand across the short-turfed pastures, balancing their baskets of red berries. The late afternoon sunshine of the last of October shone clear and warm upon the fading close-cropped herbage that covered the long slopes. The sheep were gathering by flocks at the folds. The collie, busy and important, was at work with 'Lias rounding up the stragglers. Aileen's eyes were blinded to the transient quiet beauty of this scene, for she was alive to but one point in the landscape--the red brick house with granite trimmings far away across the Rothel, and the man leaving the carriage which had just stopped at the front porch. She could not distinguish who it was, and this fact fostered conjecture--Could it be Champney Googe who had come home to help settle the trouble in the sheds? How she hated him!--yet her heart gave a sudden sick throb of expectation. How she hated herself for her weakness!