Page:To-morrow Morning (1927).pdf/298

 "He's been here a lot this winter—at least that big olive-green car has. . . . What, mother?"

"I said, can't a body pick up her handkerchief?"

"And that time Joe was in Boston. Remember, Hartley, when we asked them to the sing and he was in Boston so she didn't come? Well, that man was staying at The Inglenook, because I met Miss Stamper at the library and she told me so; she said he was there four days, and he was at the table next to hers, but he wasn't there for any of his meals, hardly. I don't believe we'd have to work overtime to guess who he was having them with! Miss Stamper said she couldn't help sort of liking him. She dropped her knitting bag once, and she said the way he picked it up and handed it back to her made her feel like a queen in exile. Well, well! Poor Joe!"

"Tck! Tck! Poor Joe, indeed!"

"Well, I guess Ida'd like to clear. I move we adjourn to the parlor. Anyone second the motion?"

Joe had not seen Hartley holding a white flower and surrounded by little boys to whom he had been explaining what bees did about pollen. People in the woods, to be hurried past, that was all.

After he had taken Evelyn to the train, after their cold sad kiss of good-by, he drove home, shuddering and yawning. He longed for sleep. But he could not go into the house that was really haunted now. He