The return trip to Wadsworth was accomplished without incident, and, bidding Mr. Schofield good-bye, Allan ran up to his office to assure himself that everything was all right, and then, after writing a necessary order or two, turned his steps homeward. The night was still and clear and it seemed to him that his steps rang on the pavement more loudly than usual. Certainly, as they turned in at the gate, they must have been heard within the Welsh home, for a moment later, the front door was opened and Mamie stood there, light in hand, to welcome him.

Allan looked at her smiling down at him, with a strange little stirring of the heart. She had grown up almost without his noticing it; he had been so absorbed in his work that he had not seen the change from girlhood into young maidenhood. He knew, of course, that she had progressed through the graded schools and at last, triumphantly, through the High school; he knew, when he stopped to think of it, that she would soon be seventeen; but she had continued, to all intents and purposes, the child he had snatched from death in the first days of their meeting. Now, somehow, all that was changed, and he gazed up into her face, seeing clearly, for the first time, what a winsome face it was.

“So you’re back!” she cried, standing aside that he might enter. “But I heard Number Two whistle in half an hour ago.”

“Yes,” said Allan. “I had a little work to do before I could come home. Do you know, Mamie,” he added, pausing beside her in the little hall, and looking down at her, “I’d never noticed before what a pretty young woman you’ve been growing into.”

The colour in Mamie’s cheeks deepened a little, but the blue eyes lifted to his did not waver, nor was there a trace of self-consciousness in her laugh.

“Look at these freckles,” she cried, her finger on them.

“Beauty spots!”

“And this pug nose.”

“A love of a nose!”

“And this big mouth.”

“I should like to kiss it,” he said, and then stopped with a sudden burning consciousness that the words should not have been uttered. “Forgive me, Mamie,” he said, quickly. “I didn’t mean that—or, rather, I did mean it, but I shouldn’t have said it.”

“Why shouldn’t you have said it?” she inquired, seriously, looking up at him with a little pucker of perplexity in her forehead. “Why shouldn’t you kiss me, if you like?”

He trembled a little before this trusting innocence, and searched around in his mind somewhat miserably for a reply.

“I don’t quite know,” he answered, at last. “I’ll think it over. But you’ll freeze to death here, with no wrap on,” and without looking at her, he led the way into the sitting room beyond.

Mamie followed him, and, placing the lamp upon a table, sat down thoughtfully before the fire.

“So you’re back, Allan?” said Jack, laying aside the local evening paper, which he had been reading aloud to Mary.

“And hungry, too,” added Mary, hastily rolling her knitting into a ball. “I’ll have ye a snack in a minute, Allan.”

“No you won’t,” retorted Allan, placing his hands on her shoulders and holding her in her chair as she started to rise. “I had dinner in the diner with Mr. Schofield, and really ate more than I should. I’m not the least hungry.”

And feeling Mary subside under his hands, he released her and sat down.

“What’s the news?” he added, turning to Jack.

“Oh, nothin’ much,” replied the latter. “I’ve heard a good deal of talk to-day about that court decision on the employers’ liability act. One section-man dropped a heavy tie on another section-man—an’ the feller that was hurt sued the railroad under the law. Now the court holds that the law don’t apply, and some of the boys are sayin’ that nothin’ that helps the labourin’ man ever does apply when it gits up to the supreme court.”

“Yes—I’ve heard of the case,” said Allan. “But look here, Jack—do you think the road ought to be made to pay, because one of its men injures another through carelessness? It wasn’t the road injured him. Suppose you hired two men to build a chimney and one of them let a brick fall on the other and killed him. Would you think you were to blame, or that you ought to pay damages?”

“No,” said Jack. “Sure not. But somehow a case against a corporation looks different to most people.”

“I know it does,” agreed Allan. “And there are a lot of people who wouldn’t steal from an individual who don’t hesitate to steal from a corporation. It’s a queer state of public morals. But who was doing the talking?”

“Well,” said Jack, “most of it was done by a big fellow with a black moustache named Nixon. Somebody said he’d come on to make the road take Rafe Bassett back.”

The disgust in his voice told how unfavourably he considered such a proposition.

“Well, don’t you be afraid,” said Allan, “the road won’t take him back.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I know Rafe Bassett—he’s low down trash—he’s always got a hammer out fer somebody. I never did understand how he got the pull he’s got with his lodge.”

“Well, he’ll need a pull before he gets through this,” said Allan, “but let’s talk about something else, Jack. Oh,” he added, suddenly, “who do you think I saw in Cincinnati to-day? I had the afternoon to myself and I went out to the Art Museum—and there, painting a picture, sat Betty Heywood.”

A sudden wave of colour flooded Mamie’s face, but no one saw it.

“Paintin’ a picture?” repeated Mrs. Welsh. “Is she a painter?”

“Yes, and a mighty good one, so far as I was able to judge, though she laughed at me and said she wasn’t. She seemed glad to see me and we took a little walk together.”

He paused a moment, for there was an unaccountable difficulty, somehow, in telling what he had to tell. Mamie’s eyes were on his face, and she was deadly pale.

“She told me about her work,” he went on. “She said she’d had to do something for a living, and had done well with her paintings. I should think she would.”

“Had to do something for a livin’?” echoed Mrs. Welsh. “Where’s her father?”

“He’s going down grade,” answered Allan, soberly, and told what he had heard of Mr. Heywood’s dissipation.

“I’m mighty sorry t’ hear that,” remarked Jack, when Allan had finished. “Mr. Heywood was a good man an’ a square man. I’ve seen better superintendents—we’ve got a better one now—but, all the same, I liked Mr. Heywood.”

“So did I,” said Allan. “I wish something could be done.”

Jack shook his head.

“When drink gits its grip on a man as old as him,” he said, “they ain’t much hope.”

“Thank goodness his wife’s dead,” added Mrs. Welsh. “It’s the wife that it’s allers the hardest on.”

“It’s hard enough on the daughter,” broke in Mamie, softly.

“Well, she won’t have to stand it much longer,” said Allan, seizing the opening Mamie’s remark gave him. “She’s going to be married next month.”

Mamie gave a quick gasp, which she tried to change into a cough, and bent again toward the fire, hiding her throbbing face in her hands.

Mary was staring at Allan, as though scarcely able to believe her ears.

“Married?” she repeated. “Who to? Allan, do you mean—”

“She’s going to marry a young lawyer named Knowlton,” broke in Allan, evenly. “It’s to be on the sixteenth, and she asked me to come.”

Mary bent again to her knitting, with a sort of hiss that sounded suspiciously like “the hussy.”

“She seems to be very happy over it,” Allan went on, anxious that these dear friends should understand, and yet fearing to say too much. “She’s a splendid girl, and beautiful as ever; but she’s changed, too. She’s not the same girl I used to know.” Mamie was looking at him now, with intense eyes. So was Mrs. Welsh. “She saw it in my face, somehow, and we laughed over it.”

“Well,” said Jack, heavily, “I used t’ think you was kind o’ sweet on her yerself, Allan.”

“I thought so, too,” answered Allan, smiling. “But I guess it was just girls in general—you know she was about the only one I ever met. I’m mighty glad she’s going to be happy. I’m going to the wedding. Why, where’s Mamie?” he added, looking around at the sound of a softly closed door. “She not going to bed already?”

“Already!” echoed Mrs. Welsh. “Do you know it’s after eleven o’clock? Time everyone of us was a-bed. Come, now, off wid ye!”

Allan laughed and arose, stretching himself lazily.

“I hadn’t any idea it was so late,” he said. “Good-night,” and he mounted to his room.

He went immediately to bed—but not to sleep. The events of the day had been many and interesting. He closed his eyes, and called up again the minutes he had passed with Betty Heywood—he heard her voice, he saw her face—but somehow another face kept slipping in between—a face with a freckled, tip-tilted nose, and tender, sympathetic mouth. Something within him seemed to warm and gladden, and he dropped off to sleep, at last, with a smile upon his lips.