"Whatever the effect," she heard someone reply with an effort at lightness, "deal gently with me, old man. The trouble is of my own making. I seem unable to face the results." The train started and the voices were lost. Bucks stepped into the car and, without seeing Gertrude in the shadow, walked forward. She felt that Glover was alone on the platform and sat for several moments irresolute. After a while she rose, crossed to the table and fingered the roses in the jar. She saw him sitting alone in the dusk and stepped to the door; the train had slowed for the yard. "Mr. Glover?--do not get up--may I be frank for a moment? I fear I am causing unnecessary complications--" Glover had risen. "You, Miss Brock?" "Did you really mean what you said to me this afternoon?" "Very sincerely." "Then I may say with equal sincerity that I should feel sorry to spoil papa's plans and Mr. Bucks' and your own." "It is not you, at all, but I who have----" "I was going to suggest that something in the nature of a compromise might be managed----" "I have lost confidence in my ability to manage anything, but if you would manage I should be very----" "It might be for two weeks--" She was half laughing at her own suggestion and at his seriousness. "I should try to deserve an extension." "--To begin to-morrow morning----" "Gladly, for that would last longer than if it began to-night. Indeed, Miss Brock, I----" "But--please--I do not undertake to receive explanations." He could only bow. "The status," she continued, gravely, "should remain, I think, the same." CHAPTER X AND A SHOCK The directors' party had been inspecting the Camp Pilot mines. The train was riding the crest of the pass when the sun set, and in the east long stretches of snow-sheds were vanishing In the shadows of the valley. Glover, engaged with Mr. Brock, Judge Saltzer, and Bucks, had been forward all day, among the directors. The compartments of the Brock car were closed when he walked back through the train and the rear platform was deserted. He seated himself in his favorite corner of the umbrella porch, where he could cross his legs, lean far back, and with an engineer's eye study the swiftly receding grace of the curves and elevations of the track. They were covering a stretch of his own construction, a pet, built when he still felt young; when he had come from the East fiery with the spirit of twenty-five. But since then he had seen seven years of blizzards, blockades, and washouts; of hard work, hardships, and disappointments. This maiden track that they were speeding over he was not ashamed of; the work was good engineering yet. But now with new and great responsibilities on his horizon, possibilities that once would have fired his imagination, he felt that seven years in and out of the mountains had left him battle-scarred and moody.