"Only one person and we can't find her. She won't come forward and speak for him; most likely she forgot all about him an hour after, although we've advertised and done everything we can."
"Does he know who she is?" Betty asked, her eyes upon her plate.
"No, Miss. It was some little time before he got stalled, when he was plowing along in the storm through that string of fashionable colonies on the North Shore that run together with no beginning or end. He doesn't rightly know where he was, when somebody called out to him and he stopped to see a young lady beside the road in a little run-about car that had got stuck. The engine was frozen and Robbie offered to tow her home, although it would have been a hard job. The young lady said it wasn't necessary, she didn't mind leaving the car there all night if he would take her to where she was going; that it wasn't far. She perched herself up beside Robbie at the wheel and directed him on the way, and a couple of miles further on he set her down at a big house. He wouldn't know it again if he saw it, because the snow was driving so hard against the lights that he could only see a few feet in front of him. The young lady offered him some money but he wouldn't take it. Oh, if she'd only come forward now!"
Betty looked up slowly.
"Maybe she will. It isn't too late even now."
"We've about given up hope." Miss Pope shook her head. "Robbie was in prison waiting for his trial when I came to sew for you, but the lawyers were so sure the young lady would be found and his name cleared that I wasn't worrying, except about the disgrace of his being suspected at all."
"Does Mrs. Atterbury know of your trouble?" The question came as an afterthought.
"No. The name being different she wouldn't connect it with me, and I guess she's got enough on her own mind. Why should I have told her? There would have been no help from her, even if she could have given it. She's too careful about keeping her own skirts clean."
There was concentrated bitterness in the dreary voice, and Betty regarded her expectantly; but the little woman's thoughts had evidently reverted to her own trouble and she said no more.
The girl comforted her as well as she was able, and took leave of her at the door of the restaurant, to continue her homeward way, sunk in a horrified perplexity which deepened with each passing moment.