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“You know, I’ve never thanked you for saving my life the other day.”

“I didn’t do anything. Just turned those darned cows—that’s all.”

“Well, if you hadn’t, where should I have been?”

He shrugged his big shoulders, propped up against the pillows.

“Can’t tell you that. But there’s one thing I will tell you.” He tumed and looked at her steadily. “You’re a damned good plucked ’un. You were doing your best to save the kids.”

She blushed, and felt angry with herself for blushing.

“One does things like that without thinking. They’re not brave really.”

“If a man or a woman isn’t plucky, they do step to think,” he remarked shrewdly. “I’ve often seen ’em thinking.”

She laughed.

“I’m horribly afraid of lots of things.”

“What sort of things?”

“Oh, frogs, and cows, and geese, and mice, and spiders. And in the dark I’m often scared. One night I met Mrs. Holmes walking in her sleep. I was terrified!”

“Walking in her sleep!”

He merely repeated her phrase, and yet the sound had something in it, which gave her a sensation of discomfort. What underlay his tone? Contempt? It wasn’t definite enough for that, and yet it seemed to wake in her a vague impalpable suspicion forgotten now for weeks. There was a question she had never asked. What was it? Ah, now she had it. Why did Mrs. Holmes say that night, “It’s just after two, isn’t