"Not any worse than you'd expect." Whitcomb's constitutional inability to look on the dark side shone in his happy eyes. "That Cap'n Jerry of yours is a dandy, though. He brought us over from the station and he whiled the time away telling how suddenly people either convalesced or died here. King coughs a little, and that inspired the genial captain to tell of his brother who'd been 'coughin' quite a spell'; and how 'sudden' he went off at the last. He said, 'Bill got up one mornin', et a good breakfast; then all to once he fetched a couple o' hacks and was gone!'" "Fred!" Linda frowned and smiled. "He did, for a fact. King says he positively refuses to fetch two consecutively." "He jokes, then," Linda spoke wistfully. "Oh, yes. He's as game as ever." "Fred,"--Linda clasped her hands tightly together,--"you don't know how cruel--how beastly I've been to Bertram." "Oh, forget it," Fred's worshiping eyes met the mourning gaze. "I'd like to; and I could if Bertram would, but he never will, I'm afraid. He hates me." "He'll get over it." "Tell me, Fred,--you must have spoken to him about me. What does he say?" Whitcomb looked off as if consulting his memory. "I can't remember his mentioning your name since Reason resumed her throne. He used to babble about you and your father, too, during his illness; but nothing connected: nothing that I can remember." "I'm really surprised that he was willing to come where I was staying." "I don't believe he knew it till we were on the train. I told him about the Lindsays and that I believed it was the right place for him." "But he must have known this was where Mrs. Porter was, and that she was with Aunt Belinda. He must have known I was with them." Whitcomb shrugged his shoulders under this insistence. "Perhaps he did," he admitted. "I spoke several times about you on the train, of course,--how I anticipated seeing you and all that." The speaker's eyes again sought some personal reassurance from his companion's distant gaze. "And he didn't say anything?" "I don't remember. I didn't notice. I don't think so." "Fred,"--Linda leaned forward in her earnestness and wrung her hands together,--"you don't know how hard it is for me to sit here and wait instead of running--_running_ to Bertram and confessing the wrong I've done and imploring his forgiveness." "None of that: none of that." Whitcomb raised a warning hand. "You mustn't say things to King to excite him. He's glassware, remember, glassware." The speaker sank on his elbow, bringing his eager, boyish face nearer the girl's white gown. His hat was on the grass beside him and his thick hair fell forward in his movement. "But here _I_ am, Linda," he added, in a different tone, "husky to the limit. When it comes to me, go as far as you like. You haven't seemed conscious of me yet."