A few days later Spencer & Son's advertisement appeared for the first time outside of New Bethel, and soon a steady stream of applications began to come in. Although Mary didn't know it, her appeal had a stirring note like the peal of a silver trumpet. It gripped attention and warmed imagination all the way from its first line "A CALL TO WOMEN" to its signature, "Josiah Spencer & Son, Inc. Mary Spencer, President." "That's the best yet," said Archey, looking at the pile of applications on the third day. "I sha'n't worry about the future half as much now." "I don't worry at all any more," said Mary, serene in her faith. "Or at least I don't worry about this," she added to herself. She was thinking of Helen again. The night before Helen had come in late, and Mary soon knew that she had been with Burdon. Helen was quiet--for her--and rather pale as well. "Did you have a quarrel?" Mary had hopefully asked. "Quarrel with Burdon Woodward?" asked Helen, and in a low voice she answered herself, "I couldn't if I tried." "... Do you love him, Helen?" To which after a pause, Helen had answered, much as she had spoken before, "I only wish he had half of Wally's money...." And would say no more. "I have warned her so often," said Mary. "What more can I say?" She uneasily wondered whether she ought to speak to her aunts, but soon shook her head at that. "It would only bother them," she told herself, "and what good could it do?" Next day at the factory she seemed to feel a shadow around her and a weight upon her mind. "What is it?" she thought more than once, pulling herself up short. The answer was never far away. "Oh, yes--Helen and Burdon Woodward. Well, I'm glad she's going out with Wally today. She's safe enough with him." It had been arranged that Wally should drive Helen to Hartford to do some shopping, and they were expected back about nine o'clock in the evening. But nine o'clock, ten o'clock, eleven o'clock and midnight came--and still no sign of Wally's car. "They must have had an accident," thought Mary, and at first she pictured this as a slight affair which simply called for a few hours' delay at a local garage--perhaps the engine had overheated, or the battery had failed. But when one o'clock struck, and still no word from the absent pair, Mary's fancies grew more tragic. By two o'clock she imagined the car overturned at the bottom of some embankment, and both of them badly hurt. At three o'clock she began to have such dire forebodings that she went and woke up Aunt Cordelia, and was on the point of telephoning Wally's mother when the welcome rumbling of a car was heard under the porte cochère. It was Wally and Helen, and though Helen looked pale she had that air of ownership over her apologetic escort which every woman understands. Mary already divined the end of the story.