There was no answer. Had he been mistaken? Had mental suggestion played him a trick? Had his eyes personified a wish when they saw a figure on the steps?
"Mary!" he called again, and his voice was loud enough for her to have heard if she were awake and near. Still there was no answer.
The pass had now become a flaming vortex which bathed him in its far-spreading radiance. But he had lost interest in sunrises. A last backward, hungry glance over his shoulder as he started gave him a glimpse through the open door of the living-room, and he saw Mary leaning against the table looking down at her hands, which were half clasped in her lap, as if she were waiting for him to get out of the way.
Thus he understood that he had ended their comradeship when he had broken through the barrier on the previous afternoon, and the only thing that could bring it back was the birth of a feeling in her greater than comradeship. His shoulders fell together, the reins loosened, while P.D., masterless if not riderless, proceeded homeward.
"Hello, Jack!"
It was the greeting of Bob Worther, the inspector of ditches, who was the only man abroad at that hour. Jack looked up with an effort to be genial and found Bob closely studying his features in a stare.
"What's the matter, Bob?" he asked. "Has my complexion turned green over night or my nose slipped around to my ear?"
"I was trying to make out if you do look like him!" Bob declared.
"Like whom? What the deuce is the mystery?"
"What—why, of course you're the most interested party and the only
Little Riversite that don't know about it, seh!"