From a large store as they were passing, a small, dry-looking, pompous little man advanced to the middle of the street, and stopped them. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Wade! I beg your pardon, sir!" he said, nimbly transferring himself, after the quasi self-introduction, from Wade to Matt. "May I ask whether you have received any further information?" "No," said Matt, amiably, "the only answer we have got is that it is impossible to identify the passengers in the parlor-car." "Ah, thank you! Thank you very much, sir! I felt sure it couldn't be _our_ Mr. Northwick. Er--good-morning, sir." He bowed himself away, and went into his store again, and Matt asked Wade, "Who in the world is that?" "He's a Mr. Gerrish--keeps the large store, there. Rather an unpleasant type." Matt smiled. "He had the effect of refusing to believe that anything so low as an accident could happen to a man of Northwick's business standing." "Something of that," Wade assented. "He worships Northwick on the altar of material success." Matt lifted his head and looked about. "I suppose the whole place is simply seething with curiosity." Just after they reached the side-street where Wade left him to go down to his church, he met Sue Northwick driving in her sleigh. She was alone, except for the groom impassive in the rumble. "Have you heard anything?" she asked, sharply. Matt repeated the dispatch from the operator at Wellwater. "I knew it was a mistake," she said, with a kind of resolute scorn. "It's perfectly ridiculous! _Why_ should he have been there? I think there ought to be some way of punishing the newspapers for circulating false reports. I've been talking with the man who drove my father to the train yesterday morning, and he says he spoke lately of buying some horses at Springfield. He got several from a farm near there once. I'm going down to telegraph the farmer; I found his name among father's bills. Of course he's there. I've got the dispatch all written out." "Let me take it back to the station for you, Miss Northwick," said Matt. "No; get in with me here, and we'll drive down, and then I'll carry you back home. Or! Here, Dennis!" she said to the man in the rumble; and she handed him the telegram. "Take this to the telegraph-office, and tell them to send it up by Simpson the instant the answer comes." The Irishman said, "Yes, ma'am," and dropped from his perch with the paper in his hand. "Get in, Mr. Hilary," she said, and after he had mounted she skilfully backed the sleigh and turned the horses homeward. "If I hear nothing from my dispatch, or if I hear wrong, I am going up to Wellwater Junction myself, by the first train. I can't wait any longer. If it's the worst, I want to know the worst." Matt did not know what to say to her courage. So he said, "Alone?" to gain time. "Of course! At such a time, I would _rather_ be alone." At the house Matt found Louise had gone to her room for a moment, and he said he would like to speak with her there.