"Come, David, hurry!" she cried. "We must be at the gate!" She took his hand, and ran down the path to the gate in the hedge. As she stood there, panting, she pressed her fingers hard on her lips; they must not quiver before the child. She kept her watch in her hand. "It isn't time yet to see them; it will take Jonas ten minutes to get around to the foot of the hill." Overhead the flicker of locust leaves cast checkering lights and shadows on her white dress and across the strained anxiety of her face. She kept her eyes on her watch, and the ten minutes passed in silence. Then she went out into the road and looked down its length of noon-tide sunshine; the stage was not in sight. "Perhaps," she thought, "it would take twenty minutes to get to the foot of the hill? I'll not look down the road for ten minutes more." After a while she said faintly, "Is it--coming?" "No'm," David assured her, "Mrs. Richie, what does God eat?" There was no answer. "Does he eat us?" "No, of course not." "Why not?" Helena lifted her head, suddenly, "It would take twenty-five minutes--I'm sure it would." She got up and walked a little way down the road, David tagging thoughtfully behind her. There was no stage in sight. "David, run down the hill to the turn, and look." The little boy, nothing loath, ran, at the turn he shook his head, and called back, "No'm. Mrs. Richie, He _must_, 'cause there's nothing goes to heaven but us. Chickens don't," he explained anxiously. But she did not notice his alarm. "I'll wait another five minutes," she said. She waited ten; and then another ten. "David," she said, in a smothered voice, "go; tell Maggie he isn't coming--to dinner. You have your dinner, dear little boy. I--don't want any." She went up-stairs to her own room, and shut and locked the door. All was over.... Yet when, in the early afternoon, the mail arrived, she had a pang of hope that was absolute agony, for he had written. There were only a dozen lines besides the "Dearest Nelly": "I am just starting out West, rather unexpectedly, on business. I am taking Alice along, and she is greatly delighted at the idea of a journey--her first. I don't know just when I'll get back; not for six weeks anyhow. Probably eight. Hope you and your youngster are all right. "Yours, L. P. "Your despatch received. We must talk things over the next time I come to Old Chester." She passed her hand over her eyes in a bewildered way; for a moment the words had absolutely no sense. Then she read them again: "We must talk things Over--" What things? Why, their marriage, of course! Their marriage? She burst out laughing; and David, looking at her, shrank away. CHAPTER XXII