Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/63

 side of the telephone conversation which Taylor overheard through his confusion indicated surprise and regret. Finished, the girl turned and looked for a moment squarely at him and he flinched inwardly, for he expected that elaborate denunciation would follow, but when she spoke, she said:

"I am going to ask you to go with me on an errand of mercy. A woman is very sick a few miles away. The telephone line between them and town is down, and they have sent for me to come. I can help there perhaps, but we may need some one to send into Pancake after the doctor. There is no one here who can drive a car except you. Will you go with me?"

"Why, of course," he stammered, at once relieved and mortified to think that she should ask a favor of him in that moment.

"There isn't much time."

He hurried to his room for coat and hat and then followed Helen out of the house to a shed where her car was sheltered. It was a one-seated Ford with a box body behind in which shovels and other tools clanked and thumped as they drove through the rain. Little was said, the girl was occupied with the difficult driving, for rain streaked the windshield, and Taylor was busy with an attempt to re-establish his own assurance. He had overstepped himself, had been brought up sharply, but instead