"Oh—is that really where you lived?" said the girl with a pitiful tone in her voice. "And—what became of your grandfather?" And then when she saw the look on the young man’s face, she wished she hadn’t asked.
Phil Pilgrim took a deep breath, lifted his right hand from the wheel, and pointed across and down the road to the two sad little white stones among the grass by the roadside.
"He is lying over there beside Grandmother," he said solemnly.
Laurel looked at the two small white stones gleaming there in that desolate field among the pretty foliage of Crimson Mountain. "Oh, I’m sorry," said the girl softly and turned toward the young man, eyes bright with tears.
Phil Pilgrim gave her a grateful shadow of a smile and turned his head quickly away, looking off toward the mountains beyond his old home.
They drove on in silence for two or three minutes, the thoughts of each mingled with the story of the dreary home and the two white stones that marked a resting place.
Then all at once they swept around a group of trees, and there below them lay the village, with a filling station half hidden at their feet down the road a half mile.
"There!" said the young man, pointing down. "There’s our filling station. It won’t be long now," and he tried to say it cheerfully.
"Well, I’m glad you will soon be relieved of responsibility on my behalf. I don’t know how to express my gratitude."
"Don’t try, please. It has been a pleasure."
Then a moment later a paved road ambled up from the valley and crept away into a wide opening in the woods at the right, and Laurel exclaimed excitedly, "Oh, but isn’t that the road to the picnic grounds! That’s the road I thought I was taking up from the other side."
"Yes, that’s the road you should have taken, Miss Sheridan, if you came in on Route Thirty. This is the new stretch of road that used to be the shortcut from Route Thirty. But I’m glad you didn’t, for then I shouldn’t have had the pleasure of rescuing you and perhaps would never have known anything of you except the memory of the little girl with the gold curls and the eyes! But you must have gone at least two miles out of your way."
Then he drove down with a sweep and into the road in front of the gasoline pumps, but Laurel had a sudden sinking feeling that she was never going to see him again. Absurd of course! He was only a stranger. What difference did it make whether she ever saw him again or not? Three hours ago she had had no consciousness of his existence, and here she was feeling awful because she thought she wouldn’t see him anymore. What a little idiot she was! It was all because she had been through such a shock. All those awful creatures practically climbing over her! She shuddered as she remembered it again, her fright, her horror! And then those arms! Lifting her high above the milling, snorting horde, holding her safe above it all. She never could forget it! Oh, he was no stranger now, and never could be. He had saved her life! And yet he was going away. She wouldn’t see him anymore.
She watched him as he swung out of the car and went to speak to the young proprietor of the garage. She saw the grave, pleasant smile with which he greeted the man, who evidently recognized him and flashed an intelligent look as Phil Pilgrim went on to tell about the car up on Crimson Mountain, which was stalled and needing, he thought, something done to the generator. The gesture with which he pointed to another car standing near made it plain to Laurel as she watched. Yes, he was good-looking, and probably it was just as well that he was going away. Though she had never thought herself one to get her head turned by a handsome face, a courteous smile. But then, having had one’s life saved, it was nice to have as her rescuer one with an attractive appearance, something pleasant to remember.
She finished this homily to herself as Phil came back to explain to her, "He’s sending a man up immediately after your car. I’ve told him just where to find it. If you’ll give him the keys, he’ll tow the car down and let you know what has to be done. Now, in the meantime, I don’t suppose you want to just hang around here, do you? Haven’t you someplace you would like to go while you are waiting? I’ll be glad to take you wherever you suggest. I’ve practically nothing to do till the midnight train comes in, when I have to meet a man who wants to see my farm. I’ll be glad to see you through till your own car is seaworthy."
"Oh, thank you, but I couldn’t think of troubling you further after all you have done for me. I’ll be quite all right now. And I’m within walking distance now of several people I know."
"You’re not fit to walk," said Phil Pilgrim in his firm tone. "You don’t realize how much you were shaken by that experience on the mountain. I’m sorry to have to force my company on you any longer, but I guess there’s no way out, unless you can think of some friend you’d rather have take you places."
He smiled his engaging smile, and Laurel felt that breathless catch in her breath as she answered. "Oh no, there’s no one I’d rather have take me. I just don’t want to be any further nuisance to you."
"Well, so far you haven’t been a nuisance. In fact, you’ve helped to bring me out of an unpleasant situation that duty forced me into. I came here to look at my worthless property and see whether I should accept an offer I’ve had for it or hold it till I get back from wherever I’m going. I also came to look at the family graves that belong to my care and see if they are getting the attention I had ordered. It wasn’t a very cheerful errand. Having concluded it, there was time to be passed till I could meet my man, so if I can be of any further service, it will relieve a tiresome monotony, and you will be doing me a favor. Where were you going when I met you on the mountain and your car balked?"
"Oh!" said Laurel with a startled look. "I was going in a great hurry to an appointment, but I guess it’s way too late for that now." She lifted her hand and glanced anxiously at her wristwatch. "Well, maybe not. Perhaps I had better go and see if anybody is there yet. I wouldn’t like them to think I hadn’t kept my word. If you would be so good as to take me to the high school. I was to have met the board there an hour ago. They are probably gone now. But at least I could say I came as soon as I was able."
"Sure!" said Phil. "Have you there in two minutes. But surely you’re not still in high school?" He gave her a mischievous grin.
She smiled appreciatively.
"No," she said, "nothing so good as that. I’m applying for a position as a substitute, in place of a teacher who is very sick. You see, that fabulous fortune you thought I was supposed to inherit vanished when my father died, and the ‘stone mansion’ was sold, so I am in search of a position to earn my living." She said it cheerfully, but there was a hint of sadness in her voice that made him look at her with a softened glance.
"Oh, I didn’t know. Well, suppose we see what we can find out. There goes the wrecking truck. Now, your car ought to be brought back soon. I told him I’d be back within an hour to find out about it. Let’s go!" His old car whizzed out to the highway, rushing along like one who knew the way, and Laurel sat still, wondering about it all. She ought to be thanking him again, but somehow it didn’t seem possible to get her gratitude across to him. He just didn’t take it. He was doing things as a matter of course, as if that was his business in life, just the way she remembered he used to clean the windshield of her father’s car and check the water and oil, sort of impersonally. It seemed to express a fineness of breeding that one would not look for in a man who was doing a menial task. It was as if to him no task was menial.
As she rode along by his side now, she had no sense that he was socially her inferior. In fact, if a Sheridan had ever had an overweening sense of class distinction, it was thoroughly purged out of Laurel now by the fire of sorrow.
As she considered the memory of the grim little farmhouse on the side of Crimson Mountain, sitting amid all the sadness of the past, it took on a kind of sacred dignity, like one who might have worn princely robes at some time long gone by but now sat in dull mourning clothes.
CHAPTER III