It was well that Elizabeth's mind was occupied with Hepsie while she bathed and cooled her swollen eyelids. Long afterward she remembered Hugh had laid his arm across his white face at that moment, but she was never to know the fulness of the self-reproach nor the depths of the despair which Hugh Noland suffered--Hugh, who loved her. For himself, he did not so much care, being a man and accustomed to the life of men in those things, but he saw the endless round of her days, carrying with her through them all the secrecy and shame of it; she who loved openness! If she had been a woman who looked herself less squarely in the face it would have been less hard. "I think I'll talk to Luther too," he said at last. "You couldn't drive Patsie over for him this evening, could you?" he asked. Elizabeth looked down at him in surprise as she wiped her hands. "Why--why, I thought you knew about Patsie," she said hesitatingly. "Patsie's dead." "Dead?" "Yes. She died the night you were hurt. John drove her for Doctor Morgan," the girl said, wishing that she could keep the news from him. After that first startled exclamation Hugh did not remark on the mare's death; he noticed that Elizabeth never blamed John for things when talking of him, and he liked her for it. "What became of the horses that day--the ones on the binder? You kept me so stupefied at first that I sort of forgot about them." He forced from her all the vital details of the purchase of the new horses. After he had received the answers she felt obliged to give he did not comment upon any feature of the story. They never criticised anything John did between them; in fact, they rarely mentioned his name, but Hugh was struck with the necessity of knowing methods and facts regarding the business and asking such simple questions as he was warranted in asking. When the discussion was finished he asked again for Luther, and she promised to get him as soon as possible.