"Get up and let me out!" Gordon gently drew the children's arms away, placed them back in their seats, rose, still blushing, and accompanied Kate back into their car. At first the boy was too astonished to speak or protest. When he found his voice he whispered in wonder: "Mama, who is she?" Ruth placed a finger on her trembling lips and shook her head. "Will she let him come back?" he asked, anxiously. "Hush, dear," the mother said, softly. The boy put his arms on the table and burst into tears. Lucy sat very quiet, glancing into her mother's face wistfully. And then she felt under the table, found one of her hands and began to stroke it gently. When Gordon returned to his car, immediately behind the one in which Ruth was riding, Kate sat for half an hour in furious silence, refusing to speak or answer a question. He had never seen her so beside herself with anger. She turned on him in a sudden flash and asked with frowning emphasis: "I wonder why you dragged me off on this idiotic trip?" "I was worn out and needed the rest," he answered, quietly. She looked at him with defiance. "I don't believe a word of it," she said, indignantly. "You wish to get me out of New York. You were too much of a coward to tell Overman your suspicions that he was trying to win your wife." Gordon looked out of the window in silence. "We will stop at the next station and go back. I don't care for any more free vaudeville shows in the dining-car." "Don't be absurd, my dear; you need not meet again." Gordon smiled in spite of himself. Tears of vexation filled the violet eyes. "For all of your loud talk of freedom, I believe you still love that first wife of yours! And I am beginning to despise you." "Come, Kate, this is too absurd. How could I help the accident of such a meeting? I had not seen the children since our separation. She has always taught them to love me. How could I prevent it if I wished?" "Yes; and you love her, too," she insisted stubbornly, and the full red lips trembled and parted, and then softened into a--smile. "But don't flatter yourself I care, or am jealous, because this scene has humiliated and angered me. You're not worth a moment's jealousy, you great hulking baby!" Gordon pressed the button and ordered a lunch served in their seat, and smilingly refused to continue the quarrel. When the train crossed the North Carolina line it ran into the belt of the advancing spring rains from the South. At Wilson, it was pouring in torrents and had been raining steadily for two days. At Fayetteville, the train was an hour late, delayed by a washout. Lucy had gone to sleep with her arm around her mother's neck and one hand resting softly on her cheek. Ruth's heart had been deeply touched by this gentle and silent sympathy of the dawning sex consciousness of her daughter's soul. The quick little eyes had seen the tragedy, and a voice within whispered its soft words of new, mysterious kinship.