head. "I feel as if we were going to see something perfectly dreadful--"

"Betty," Grace looked at her in sudden alarm, her eyes wide, "you don't
suppose that the professor could have done anything--anything rash, do
you?"

"You mean--" said Betty, hesitating before the ugly word. "Oh, Grace, you
don't mean--suicide, do you?"

Grace nodded and tried hard not to look as frightened as she felt.

"No, I--I don't think so," said Betty, grasping the wheel with hands that
somehow seemed suddenly weak. "If I thought anything like that had
happened I wouldn't have the courage to go on."

"Well, I don't believe I have--the courage, I mean," said Grace,
irresolutely. "Don't you think we had better go back, Betty? It's so
lonesome here and--and--everything--"

Her voice was rising to something like a wail, and Betty, striving to
throttle her own misgivings, spoke in a voice that was intended to be
reassuring.

"We wouldn't think very much of ourselves if we turned back now," she
said. "And probably we are worrying a great deal about nothing. He didn't
seem like the kind of man who would do a thing like that."

Grace said no more about turning back, and they were silent for the rest
of the way. But instead of lightening, the cloud of depression became
deeper and more foreboding until even the stout Little Captain began,