Page:Mary Rinehart - Man in Lower Ten.djvu/102

 some inquiries. I've been criminally thoughtless. Your—traveling companion—"

She interrupted me, and something of her splendid poise was gone. "Please don't go back," she said. "I—am afraid it would be of no use. And—I don't want to be left alone."

Heaven knows I did not want her to be alone. I was more than content to walk along beside her aimlessly, for any length of time. Gradually, as she lost the exaltation of the moment, I was gaining my normal condition of mind. I was beginning to realize that I had lacked the morning grace of a shave, that I looked like some lost hope of yesterday, and that my left shoe pinched outrageously. A man does not rise triumphant above such handicaps. The girl, for all her disordered hair and the crumpled linen of her waist, in spite of her missing hat and the small gold bag that hung forlornly from, a broken chain, looked exceedingly lovely.

"Then I won't leave you alone," I said manfully, and we stumbled on together. Thus far we had seen nobody from the wreck, but well up the lane we came across the tall dark woman who