“I've wondered sometimes, if you knew,” she said at length, “if you really thought Jess was the only one to blame. It was just as much her folks--her brother, you know--he was worried about it, and he tried to keep her from going on with you.” “Yes, I know. He told me that.” “And I--don't you see how it is? You've both of you been two of the best friends I ever had, and I didn't like to see it--well, you know, don't you?” She was looking into the fire as she spoke, and Hunch was watching her. She was very much in earnest. “Don't you see?” she went on. “I couldn't help feeling kind of bad about it. Why can't you make it all right?” She waited for him to answer, and at last looked up at him with a half smile. “Why?” She asked again. Hunch looked at her, almost fiercely, until she lowered her eyes to the stove. He got up, and walked to the window and back. “Did you think it was her?” he asked, in a strange voice. “Why--yes.” “Well, it wasn't. It was you.” Mamie lost a shade of her color and leaned back in her chair. Hunch stood looking down at her and he said again, “It was you, Mamie.” Mamie spoke without looking up. “Oh, John,” she said, “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.” Then Hunch sat down and talked wildly, eagerly. And Mamie leaned back without a word, and looked at the brass ball on top of the stove and at the patterns on the wallpaper. Hunch was talking when a key rattled in the lock, and he sat stiff and constrained when Mamie's father and mother came into the room. He tried to stay and talk, but could not; and a few minutes later he said “Good-night,” and went out into the hall. Mamie followed him, and without a word took down his ulster and helped him to get it on. “Good-by,” he said. “Good-by, John. Don't be mad, will you? You know how much I care for you; and we'll be good friends, won't we, John?” He bent down and whispered close to her ear, “I'm in for it now, Mamie. I ain't going to lose you now. Next time I come down I ain't going back without you.” Mamie smiled sadly, and shook her head. But she stood in the doorway watching him until he had passed into the darkness beyond the lamp-post on the corner. CHAPTER XVIII--THE HOUSE WITH THE SHINGLED FRONT |THE Fates kept Hunch from getting to Liddington again during the autumn, so he took to writing letters. He could not write what he would have said; his letters were stilted little notes, usually beginning with a phrase he had picked up from the office correspondence, “Yours of recent date is just at hand,” or “Replying to yours of recent date,” etc. Mamie wrote as impersonally, and through the autumn and on into the winter their letters told of nothing but incidental doings and happenings; but both were conscious of the sentiment that lay behind the effort of writing.