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 thought just oppositely; they sailed and steamed from Mackinac, in the north, "up" to the "head of the lake," up to Chicago; they returned "down" to the straits.

"No; I'm not going down," Ellen said.

Yet there was a train to-night which would deliver her to-morrow at the little snowy siding of Hoster where horses blew white breath from black nostrils and stamped, hock-high in the snow, their triumph over vanquished motor-cars. Home and the hills, her country!

In her handbag, she held the fare; she owned the holiday over the Christmas into the early days of next week. She had completed the schedules of every order that was in. Mr. Rountree had told her to go.

Why didn't she? Di. She dared not desert Di this Christmas. Yet Di supplied only an additional reason. In any case, she would not go. What held her was Jay, married though she knew him to be, married for two days, the husband of Lida. Married and at Tryston with his wife—the newspaper had said they were at Tryston—on a thousand dollars.

At the end of the thousand, what and where for him and his wife? New York again or Chicago?

Word of some sort, a wire for money or another message from him must soon arrive. Perhaps on Monday. Not likely, so soon; but possibly. And possibly he, himself, with his wife would appear. Ellen would not be away; she would run no chance of being away when he, or even a message from him, arrived.

"No; I'm not going down," she said again to Denny.