"It was nearly September by this time and harvest was over, my job with it, of course; so I started on east afoot, tramping it. I wasn't a particularly handsome specimen, but still I was clean, and I never asked for a meal without offering to work for it. Yet in the three hundred miles I covered before school opened I had four farmers' wives call the dog,--I recorded the number; and I only slept under a roof two nights. "Even after I came here, after--Elice, don't! I'm a brute to have done this! From the bottom of my soul I beg your pardon." The girl was weeping repressedly, her face buried in her hands, her whole body tense. "Elice, please don't! I'm ashamed. I only wanted you to understand; and now--I'm simply ashamed." "You needn't be at all." As suddenly as it had come the storm abated, under compulsion. "I wanted to know several things very much; and now I think I do know them. At least I don't wonder any more--why." She stood up decisively, disdaining to dry her eyes. "But we mustn't stop to chatter any more now," she digressed preventingly. "You made me forget all about time, and cooks should never forget that. It's nearly sundown and father--he'll have been hungry for two hours." Roberts got to his feet slowly. If in the new light of understanding there was more he had intended saying that day, or if at the sudden barring of opportunity he felt disappointment, his face gave no indication of the fact. He merely smiled in tolerant appreciation of the suggestion last made. "Doesn't your father know the remedy for hunger yet, at his age?" he queried whimsically. "Knows it, yes," with an odd laugh; "but it would never occur to him unless some one else suggested it." A pause, then she looked her companion full in the face, significantly so. "He's dependent and irresponsible as a child or--as Steve Armstrong. They're helpless both, absolutely, left to themselves; and speaking of that, they're both by themselves now." She started for the motor hastily, again significantly so. "Come, please," she requested. CHAPTER VI CRISIS It was nearly dark when the big red car drew up in front of the Gleason cottage and, the girl only alighting, moved on again slowly down the street. At the second crossing beyond, out of sight of the house, it switched abruptly to the right for four blocks, into the poorer section of the town, and stopped before a battered, old-fashioned residence. A middle-aged man in his shirt sleeves sat on the step smoking a pipe. At a nod from the driver he advanced to the curb. "Mr. Armstrong in, Edwards?" asked Roberts directly. The man shook his head. "Been here, has he?" "Not since he left this morning; about ten o'clock it was." Roberts paused, his hand on the clutch lever. "Will you have him 'phone me when he comes, please?" "Yes, certainly." "Thank you."