"
"How did it come," inquired Henry Anderson, "that you had that
car jacked up so long?"
"Why, hasn't anybody told you," asked Linda, "about our day of
the Black Shadow?"
"John Gilman wrote me when it happened," said Peter softly, "but
I don't believe it has been mentioned before Henry. You tell
him."
Linda turned to Henry Anderson, and with trembling lips and
paling cheeks, in a few brief sentences she gave him the details.
Then she said to Peter Morrison in a low voice: "And that is the
why of Marian Thorne's white head. Anybody tell you that?"
"That white head puzzled me beyond anything I ever saw," he said.
"I meant to ask John about it. He used to talk to me and write
to me often about her, and lately he hasn't; when I came I saw
the reason, and so you see I felt reticent on the subject."
"Well, there's nothing the matter with my tongue," said Linda.
"It's loose at both ends. Marian was an expert driver. She
drove with the same calm judgment and precision and graceful
skill that she does everything else, but the curve was steep and
something in the brakes was defective. It broke with a snap and
there was not a thing she could do. Enough was left of the
remains of the car to prove that. Ten days afterward her head
was almost as white as snow. Before that it was as dark as mine.
But her body is just as young and her heart is just as young and
her face is even more beautiful. I do think that a white crown
makes her lovelier than she was before.
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