“But don’t give up yet, Rill, we still have four days ahead.”

“What’s four days! Just like the four days that preceded. Wait and hope and find nothing. I’m going to get a job.”

“Hop to it, little sister. But don’t give up hope. You know jobs aren’t easy to get either!”

“I know!” Rilla sat down on the hall settee and sighed. “What are we going to do?”

“Something,” said her brother as he went up the stairs two steps at a time. “We still have four days.”

“And tomorrow there will be only three days.”

“Exactly so,” laughed her brother, swinging into his room and kicking off his worn shoes that with plenty of polishing would carry him through a few interviews without shame. It seemed strange that he should have reached a place where a thing like that was something for which to be profoundly thankful.

Thurlow dressed with haste but as carefully as his wardrobe permitted and hurried downstairs.

“Don’t wait dinner for me, Mother,” he said to the anxious mother who was concocting an appetizing dinner at the least expense possible.

“Oh, Thurlow,” she said, dismayed. “You’ll get sick before this is over. I just know you will. Can’t you wait till I get dinner on the table? It won’t be half an hour.”

“I can’t wait five minutes, little Mother,” he said, stooping to kiss her tenderly. “I’ve got a lead, and I’ve got to follow it while the trail is hot. It may lead to nothing, but it’s my last chance as far as I can see. I’ll get back as soon as I can, but I can’t stop now. It’s now or never!”

“Then you must drink a glass of milk,” pleaded the mother.

He poured the milk down in one breath, accepted a couple of sugar cookies from the plate she handed out, and was gone.

“Oh dear!” sighed his mother. “To think he has to be hurrying around wildly this way for nothing. Just nothing! What would his father say, after all his careful planning for you both! It’s heartbreaking!”

“He thinks he has something,” said the sister listlessly, “but he might as well give up and try to hunt a job.”

“I’m afraid it will be just the same when he comes to hunting a job,” said the mother, and the slow tears stole quietly down her cheeks.

“Now, Mother, don’t you give up, too,” said the girl with stormy eyes and set lips, rising and going to look out of the window to hide the sudden tears that blurred her own eyes.

There was unhappy silence in the room for several seconds, and then the mother answered in a tone of forced cheerfulness, “No, of course not. I had no thought of giving up. We’re going to come through all right. I have no doubt that Thurlow will succeed in something soon, and we shall find everything settling into sane living again. We’ve got to keep brave and cheerful.”

“Of course!” said Rilla peppily, but she stood a long time staring out into the evening twilight, her lips set in that firm determination that showed she was thinking something through to a finish. Her mother watched her furtively and thought how much she looked like her father, and presently she got up and went to the old desk where a lot of important papers were kept. There were things there that she had meant to look over when she could bring herself to doing it, not very important things, but still she had to do it sometime, and this was as good a time as any, since they would, of course, delay dinner for a while, hoping Thurlow would return to share it with them. She had shrank long from going over these papers. They reminded her so of the husband and father who was gone that she could hardly bear to handle them, but perhaps it was as well to get through with it. A lot of them must be destroyed. The house, of course, was not going to be theirs any longer, no matter what happened, and she ought to get her things in order.

So she sat down at the desk, and Rilla continued to stare into the lengthening shadows out on the grass, thinking out her seventeen-year-old problems.

Meantime Thurlow was having troubles of his own. Arrived at the House of Steele, he had asked to see Mrs. Steele and was told that she was very busy just now. Could he send up a message, or would he come again in the morning?

Thurlow’s heart was beating like the proverbial trip-hammer, and he stood there baffled for an instant.