CHAPTER VIII

Like a flash he swung the hammer, and at the same moment I fired

The hammer-handle had struck slantingly across my forehead, and my head ached from the blow. I abused myself roundly for managing the encounter so stupidly, and in my rage fired twice with no aim whatever after the flying figure of the caretaker. He clearly had the advantage of familiarity with the wood, striking off boldly into the heart of it, and quickly widening the distance between us; but I kept on, even after I ceased to hear him threshing through the undergrowth, and came out presently at the margin of the lake about fifty feet from the boat-house. I waited in the shadow for some time, expecting to see the fellow again, but he did not appear.

I found the wall with difficulty and followed it back to the gate. It would be just as well, I thought, to possess myself of the hammer; and I dropped down on the St. Agatha side of the wall and groped about among the leaves until I found it.

Then I walked home, went into the library, alight with its many candles just as I had left it, and sat down before the fire to meditate. I had been absent from the house only forty-five minutes.

A moment later Bates entered with a fresh supply of wood. I watched him narrowly for some sign of perturbation, but he was not to be caught off guard. Possibly he had not heard the shots in the wood; at any rate, he tended the fire with his usual gravity, and after brushing the hearth paused respectfully.

“Is there anything further, sir?”

“I believe not, Bates. Oh! here’s a hammer I picked up out in the grounds a bit ago. I wish you’d see if it belongs to the house.”

He examined the implement with care and shook his head.

“It doesn’t belong here, I think, sir. But we sometimes find tools left by the carpenters that worked on the house. Shall I put this in the tool-chest, sir?”

“Never mind. I need such a thing now and then and I’ll keep it handy.”

“Very good, Mr. Glenarm. It’s a bit sharper to-night, but we’re likely to have sudden changes at this season.”

“I dare say.”

We were not getting anywhere; the fellow was certainly an incomparable actor.

“You must find it pretty lonely here, Bates. Don’t hesitate to go to the village when you like.”

“I thank you, Mr. Glenarm; but I am not much for idling. I keep a few books by me for the evenings. Annandale is not what you would exactly call a diverting village.”

“I fancy not. But the caretaker over at the summer resort has even a lonelier time, I suppose. That’s what I’d call a pretty cheerless job,—watching summer cottages in the winter.”

“That’s Morgan, sir. I meet him occasionally when I go to the village; a very worthy person, I should call him, on slight acquaintance.”

“No doubt of it, Bates. Any time through the winter you want to have him in for a social glass, it’s all right with me.”

He met my gaze without flinching, and lighted me to the stair with our established ceremony. I voted him an interesting knave and really admired the cool way in which he carried off difficult situations. I had no intention of being killed, and now that I had due warning of danger, I resolved to protect myself from foes without and within. Both Bates and Morgan, the caretaker, were liars of high attainment. Morgan was, moreover, a cheerful scoundrel, and experience taught me long ago that a knave with humor is doubly dangerous.

Before going to bed I wrote a long letter to Larry Donovan, giving him a full account of my arrival at Glenarm House. The thought of Larry always cheered me, and as the pages slipped from my pen I could feel his sympathy and hear him chuckling over the lively beginning of my year at Glenarm. The idea of being fired upon by an unseen foe would, I knew, give Larry a real lift of the spirit.

The next morning I walked into the village, mailed my letter, visited the railway station with true rustic instinct and watched the cutting out of a freight car for Annandale with a pleasure I had not before taken in that proceeding. The villagers stared at me blankly as on my first visit. A group of idle laborers stopped talking to watch me; and when I was a few yards past them they laughed at a remark by one of the number which I could not overhear. But I am not a particularly sensitive person; I did not care what my Hoosier neighbors said of me; all I asked was that they should refrain from shooting at the back of my head through the windows of my own house.

On this day I really began to work. I mapped out a course of reading, set up a draftsman’s table I found put away in a closet, and convinced myself that I was beginning a year of devotion to architecture. Such was, I felt, the only honest course. I should work every day from eight until one, and my leisure I should give to recreation and a search for the motives that lay behind the crafts and assaults of my enemies.

When I plunged into the wood in the middle of the afternoon it was with the definite purpose of returning to the upper end of the lake for an interview with Morgan, who had, so Bates informed me, a small house back of the cottages.

I took the canoe I had chosen for my own use from the boat-house and paddled up the lake. The air was still warm, but the wind that blew out of the south tasted of rain. I scanned the water and the borders of the lake for signs of life,—more particularly, I may as well admit, for a certain maroon-colored canoe and a girl in a red tam-o’-shanter, but lake and summer cottages were mine alone. I landed and began at once my search for Morgan. There were many paths through the woods back of the cottages, and I followed several futilely before I at last found a small house snugly bid away in a thicket of young maples.

The man I was looking for came to the door quickly in response to my knock.

“Good afternoon, Morgan.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Glenarm,” he said, taking the pipe from his mouth the better to grin at me. He showed no sign of surprise, and I was nettled by his cool reception. There was, perhaps, a certain element of recklessness in my visit to the house of a man who had shown so singular an interest in my affairs, and his cool greeting vexed me.

“Morgan—” I began.

“Won’t you come in and rest yourself, Mr. Glenarm?” he interrupted. “I reckon you’re tired from your trip over—”

“Thank you, no,” I snapped.

“Suit yourself, Mr. Glenarm.” He seemed to like my name and gave it a disagreeable drawling emphasis.

“Morgan, you are an infernal blackguard. You have tried twice to kill me—”

“We’ll call it that, if you like,”—and he grinned. “But you’d better cut off one for this.”

He lifted the gray fedora hat from his head, and poked his finger through a hole in the top.

“You’re a pretty fair shot, Mr. Glenarm. The fact about me is,”—and he winked,—”the honest truth is, I’m all out of practice. Why, sir, when I saw you paddling out on the lake this afternoon I sighted you from the casino half a dozen times with my gun, but I was afraid to risk it.” He seemed to be shaken with inner mirth. “If I’d missed, I wasn’t sure you’d be scared to death!”

For a novel diversion I heartily recommend a meeting with the assassin who has, only a few days or hours before, tried to murder you. I know of nothing in the way of social adventure that is quite equal to it. Morgan was a fellow of intelligence and, whatever lay back of his designs against me, he was clearly a foe to reckon with. He stood in the doorway calmly awaiting my next move. I struck a match on my box and lighted a cigarette.

“Morgan, I hope you understand that I am not responsible for any injury my grandfather may have inflicted on you. I hadn’t seen him for several years before he died. I was never at Glenarm before in my life, so it’s a little rough for you to visit your displeasure on me.”

He smiled tolerantly as I spoke. I knew—and he knew that I did—that no ill feeling against my grandfather lay back of his interest in my affairs.

“You’re not quite the man your grandfather was, Mr. Glenarm. You’ll excuse my bluntness, but I take it that you’re a frank man. He was a very keen person, and, I’m afraid,”—he chuckled with evident satisfaction to himself,—”I’m really afraid, Mr. Glenarm, that you’re not!”

“There you have it, Morgan! I fully agree with you! I’m as dull as an oyster; that’s the reason I’ve called on you for enlightenment. Consider that I’m here under a flag of truce, and let’s see if we can’t come to an agreement.”

“It’s too late, Mr. Glenarm; too late. There was a time when we might have done some business; but that’s past now. You seem like a pretty decent fellow, too, and I’m sorry I didn’t see you sooner; but better luck next time.”

He stroked his yellow beard reflectively and shook his head a little sadly. He was not a bad-looking fellow; and he expressed himself well enough with a broad western accent.

“Well,” I said, seeing that I should only make myself ridiculous by trying to learn anything from him, “I hope our little spats through windows and on walls won’t interfere with our pleasant social relations. And I don’t hesitate to tell you,”—I was exerting myself to keep down my anger,—”that if I catch you on my grounds again I’ll fill you with lead and sink you in the lake.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said, with so perfect an imitation of Bates’ voice and manner that I smiled in spite of myself.

“And now, if you’ll promise not to fire into my back I’ll wish you good day. Otherwise—”

He snatched off his hat and bowed profoundly. “It’ll suit me much better to continue handling the case on your grounds,” he said, as though he referred to a business matter. “Killing a man on your own property requires some explaining—you may have noticed it?”

“Yes; I commit most of my murders away from home,” I said. “I formed the habit early in life. Good day, Morgan.”

As I turned away he closed his door with a slam,—a delicate way of assuring me that he was acting in good faith, and not preparing to puncture my back with a rifle-ball. I regained the lake-shore, feeling no great discouragement over the lean results of my interview, but rather a fresh zest for the game, whatever the game might be. Morgan was not an enemy to trifle with; he was, on the other hand, a clever and daring foe; and the promptness with which he began war on me the night of my arrival at Glenarm House, indicated that there was method in his hostility.

The sun was going his ruddy way beyond St. Agatha’s as I drove my canoe into a little cove near which the girl in the tam-o’-shanter had disappeared the day before. The shore was high here and at the crest was a long curved bench of stone reached by half a dozen steps, from which one might enjoy a wide view of the country, both across the lake and directly inland. The bench was a pretty bit of work, boldly reminiscential of Alma Tadema, and as clearly the creation of John Marshall Glenarm as though his name had been carved upon it.

It was assuredly a spot for a pipe and a mood, and as the shadows crept through the wood before me and the water, stirred by the rising wind, began to beat below, I invoked the one and yielded to the other. Something in the withered grass at my feet caught my eye. I bent and picked up a string of gold beads, dropped there, no doubt, by some girl from the school or a careless member of the summer colony. I counted the separate beads—they were round and there were fifty of them. The proper length for one turn about a girl’s throat, perhaps; not more than that! I lifted my eyes and looked off toward St. Agatha’s.

“Child of the red tam-o’-shanter, I’m very sorry I was rude to you yesterday, for I liked your steady stroke with the paddle; and I admired, even more, the way you spurned me when you saw that among all the cads in the world I am number one in Class A. And these golden bubbles (O girl of the red tam-o’-shanter!), if they are not yours you shall help me find the owner, for we are neighbors, you and I, and there must be peace between our houses.”

With this foolishness I rose, thrust the beads into my pocket, and paddled home in the waning glory of the sunset.

That night, as I was going quite late to bed, bearing a candle to light me through the dark hall to my room, I heard a curious sound, as of some one walking stealthily through the house. At first I thought Bates was still abroad, but I waited, listening for several minutes, without being able to mark the exact direction of the sound or to identify it with him. I went on to the door of my room, and still a muffled step seemed to follow me,—first it had come from below, then it was much like some one going up stairs,—but where? In my own room I still heard steps, light, slow, but distinct. Again there was a stumble and a hurried recovery,—ghosts, I reflected, do not fall down stairs!

The sound died away, seemingly in some remote part of the house, and though I prowled about for an hour it did not recur that night.

Wind and rain rioted in the wood, and occasionally both fell upon the library windows with a howl and a splash. The tempest had wakened me; it seemed that every chimney in the house held a screaming demon. We were now well-launched upon December, and I was growing used to my surroundings. I had offered myself frequently as a target by land and water; I had sat on the wall and tempted fate; and I had roamed the house constantly expecting to surprise Bates in some act of treachery; but the days were passing monotonously. I saw nothing of Morgan—he had gone to Chicago on some errand, so Bates reported—but I continued to walk abroad every day, and often at night, alert for a reopening of hostilities. Twice I had seen the red tam-o’-shanter far through the wood, and once I had passed my young acquaintance with another girl, a dark, laughing youngster, walking in the highway, and she had bowed to me coldly. Even the ghost in the wall proved inconstant, but I had twice heard the steps without being able to account for them.

Memory kept plucking my sleeve with reminders of my grandfather. I was touched at finding constantly his marginal notes in the books he had collected with so much intelligence and loving care. It occurred to me that some memorial, a tablet attached to the outer wall, or perhaps, more properly placed in the chapel, would be fitting; and I experimented with designs for it, covering many sheets of drawing-paper in an effort to set forth in a few words some hint of his character. On this gray morning I produced this:

1835The life of John Marshall Glenarmwas a testimony to the virtue ofgenerosity, forbearance and gentlenessThe Beautiful things he lovedwere not nobler than his own daysHis grandson (who served him ill)writes this of him1901

I had drawn these words on a piece of cardboard and was studying them critically when Bates came in with wood.

“Those are unmistakable snowflakes, sir,” said Bates from the window. “We’re in for winter now.”

It was undeniably snow; great lazy flakes of it were crowding down upon the wood.

Bates had not mentioned Morgan or referred even remotely to the pistol-shot of my first night, and he had certainly conducted himself as a model servant. The man-of-all-work at St. Agatha’s, a Scotchman named Ferguson, had visited him several times, and I had surprised them once innocently enjoying their pipes and whisky and water in the kitchen.

“They are having trouble at the school, sir,” said Bates from the hearth.

“The young ladies running a little wild, eh?”

“Sister Theresa’s ill, sir. Ferguson told me last night!”

“No doubt Ferguson knows,” I declared, moving the papers about on my desk, conscious, and not ashamed of it, that I enjoyed these dialogues with Bates. I occasionally entertained the idea that he would some day brain me as I sat dining upon the viands which he prepared with so much skill; or perhaps he would poison me, that being rather more in his line of business and perfectly easy of accomplishment; but the house was bare and lonely and he was a resource.

“So Sister Theresa’s ill!” I began, seeing that Bates had nearly finished, and glancing with something akin to terror upon the open pages of a dreary work on English cathedrals that had put me to sleep the day before.

“She’s been quite uncomfortable, sir; but they hope to see her out in a few days!”

“That’s good; I’m glad to hear it.”

“Yes, sir. I think we naturally feel interested, being neighbors. And Ferguson says that Miss Devereux’s devotion to her aunt is quite touching.”

I stood up straight and stared at Bates’ back—he was trying to stop the rattle which the wind had set up in one of the windows.

“Miss Devereux!” I laughed outright.

“That’s the name, sir,—rather odd, I should call it.”

“Yes, it is rather odd,” I said, composed again, but not referring to the name. My mind was busy with a certain paragraph in my grandfather’s will:

Should he fail to comply with this provision, said property shall revert to my general estate, and become, without reservation, and without necessity for any process of law, the property, absolutely, of Marian Devereux, of the County and State of New York.

“Your grandfather was very fond of her, sir. She and Sister Theresa were abroad at the time he died. It was my sorrowful duty to tell them the sad news in New York, sir, when they landed.”

“The devil it was!” It irritated me to remember that Bates probably knew exactly the nature of my grandfather’s will; and the terms of it were not in the least creditable to me. Sister Theresa and her niece were doubtless calmly awaiting my failure to remain at Glenarm House during the disciplinary year,—Sister Theresa, a Protestant nun, and the niece who probably taught drawing in the school for her keep! I was sure it was drawing; nothing else would, I felt, have brought the woman within the pale of my grandfather’s beneficence.

I had given no thought to Sister Theresa since coming to Glenarm. She had derived her knowledge of me from my grandfather, and, such being the case, she would naturally look upon me as a blackguard and a menace to the peace of the neighborhood. I had, therefore, kept rigidly to my own side of the stone wall. A suspicion crossed my mind, marshaling a host of doubts and questions that had lurked there since my first night at Glenarm.

“Bates!”

He was moving toward the door with his characteristic slow step.

“If your friend Morgan, or any one else, should shoot me, or if I should tumble into the lake, or otherwise end my earthly career—Bates!”

His eyes had slipped from mine to the window and I spoke his name sharply.

“Yes, Mr. Glenarm.”

“Then Sister Theresa’s niece would get this property and everything else that belonged to Mr. Glenarm.”

“That’s my understanding of the matter, sir.”

“Morgan, the caretaker, has tried to kill me twice since I came here. He fired at me through the window the night I came,—Bates!”

I waited for his eyes to meet mine again. His hands opened and shut several times, and alarm and fear convulsed his face for a moment.

“Bates, I’m trying my best to think well of you; but I want you to understand”—I smote the table with my clenched hand—“that if these women, or your employer, Mr. Pickering, or that damned hound, Morgan, or you— damn you, I don’t know who or what you are!—think you can scare me away from here, you’ve waked up the wrong man, and I’ll tell you another thing,—and you may repeat it to your school-teachers and to Mr. Pickering, who pays you, and to Morgan, whom somebody has hired to kill me,—that I’m going to keep faith with my dead grandfather, and that when I’ve spent my year here and done what that old man wished me to do, I’ll give them this house and every acre of ground and every damned dollar the estate carries with it. And now one other thing! I suppose there’s a sheriff or some kind of a constable with jurisdiction over this place, and I could have the whole lot of you put into jail for conspiracy, but I’m going to stand out against you alone,—do you understand me, you hypocrite, you stupid, slinking spy? Answer me, quick, before I throw you out of the room!”

I had worked myself into a great passion and fairly roared my challenge, pounding the table in my rage.

“Yes, sir; I quite understand you, sir. But I’m afraid, sir—”

“Of course you’re afraid!” I shouted, enraged anew by his halting speech. “You have every reason in the world to be afraid. You’ve probably heard that I’m a bad lot and a worthless adventurer; but you can tell Sister Theresa or Pickering or anybody you please that I’m ten times as bad as I’ve ever been painted. Now clear out of here!”

He left the room without looking at me again. During the morning I strolled through the house several times to make sure he had not left it to communicate with some of his fellow plotters, but I was, I admit, disappointed to find him in every instance busy at some wholly proper task. Once, indeed, I found him cleaning my storm boots! To find him thus humbly devoted to my service after the raking I had given him dulled the edge of my anger. I went back to the library and planned a cathedral in seven styles of architecture, all unrelated and impossible, and when this began to bore me I designed a crypt in which the wicked should be buried standing on their heads and only the very good might lie and sleep in peace. These diversions and several black cigars won me to a more amiable mood. I felt better, on the whole, for having announced myself to the delectable Bates, who gave me for luncheon a brace of quails, done in a manner that stripped criticism of all weapons.

We did not exchange a word, and after knocking about in the library for several hours I went out for a tramp. Winter had indeed come and possessed the earth, and it had given me a new landscape. The snow continued to fall in great, heavy flakes, and the ground was whitening fast.

A rabbit’s track caught my eye and I followed it, hardly conscious that I did so. Then the clear print of two small shoes mingled with the rabbit’s trail. A few moments later I picked up an overshoe, evidently lost in the chase by one of Sister Theresa’s girls, I reflected. I remembered that while at Tech I had collected diverse memorabilia from school-girl acquaintances, and here I was beginning a new series with a string of beads and an overshoe!

A rabbit is always an attractive quarry. Few things besides riches are so elusive, and the little fellows have, I am sure, a shrewd humor peculiar to themselves. I rather envied the school-girl who had ventured forth for a run in the first snow-storm of the season. I recalled Aldrich’s turn on Gautier’s lines as I followed the double trail:

“Howe’er you tread, a tiny mouldBetrays that light foot all the same;Upon this glistening, snowy foldAt every step it signs your name.”

A pretty autograph, indeed! The snow fell steadily and I tramped on over the joint signature of the girl and the rabbit. Near the lake they parted company, the rabbit leading off at a tangent, on a line parallel with the lake, while his pursuer’s steps pointed toward the boat-house.

There was, so far as I knew, only one student of adventurous blood at St. Agatha’s, and I was not in the least surprised to see, on the little sheltered balcony of the boat-house, the red tam-o’-shanter. She wore, too, the covert coat I remembered from the day I saw her first from the wall. Her back was toward me as I drew near; her hands were thrust into her pockets. She was evidently enjoying the soft mingling of the snow with the still, blue waters of the lake, and a girl and a snow-storm are, if you ask my opinion, a pretty combination. The fact of a girl’s facing a winter storm argues mightily in her favor,—testifies, if you will allow me, to a serene and dauntless spirit, for one thing, and a sound constitution, for another.

I ran up the steps, my cap in one hand, her overshoe in the other. She drew back a trifle, just enough to bring my conscience to its knees.

“I didn’t mean to listen that day. I just happened to be on the wall and it was a thoroughly underbred trick—my twitting you about it—and I should have told you before if I’d known how to see you—”

“May I trouble you for that shoe?” she said with a great deal of dignity.

They taught that cold disdain of man, I supposed, as a required study at St. Agatha’s.

“Oh, certainly! Won’t you allow me?”

“Thank you, no!”

I was relieved, to tell the truth, for I had been out of the world for most of that period in which a youngster perfects himself in such graces as the putting on of a girl’s overshoes. She took the damp bit of rubber—a wet overshoe, even if small and hallowed by associations, isn’t pretty—as Venus might have received a soft-shell crab from the hand of a fresh young merman. I was between her and the steps to which her eyes turned longingly.

“Of course, if you won’t accept my apology I can’t do anything about it; but I hope you understand that I’m sincere and humble, and anxious to be forgiven.”

“You seem to be making a good deal of a small matter—”

“I wasn’t referring to the overshoe!” I said.

She did not relent.

“If you’ll only go away—”

She rested one hand against the corner of the boat-house while she put on the overshoe. She wore, I noticed, brown gloves with cuffs.

“How can I go away! You children are always leaving things about for me to pick up. I’m perfectly worn out carrying some girl’s beads about with me; and I spoiled a good glove on your overshoe.”

“I’ll relieve you of the beads, too, if you please.” And her tone measurably reduced my stature.

She thrust her hands into the pockets of her coat and shook the tam-o’-shanter slightly, to establish it in a more comfortable spot on her head. The beads had been in my corduroy coat since I found them. I drew them out and gave them to her.

“Thank you; thank you very much.”

“Of course they are yours, Miss—”

She thrust them into her pocket.

“Of course they’re mine,” she said indignantly, and turned to go.

“We’ll waive proof of property and that sort of thing,” I remarked, with, I fear, the hope of detaining her. “I’m sorry not to establish a more neighborly feeling with St. Agatha’s. The stone wall may seem formidable, but it’s not of my building. I must open the gate. That wall’s a trifle steep for climbing.”

I was amusing myself with the idea that my identity was a dark mystery to her. I had read English novels in which the young lord of the manor is always mistaken for the game-keeper’s son by the pretty daughter of the curate who has come home from school to be the belle of the county. But my lady of the red tam-o’-shanter was not a creature of illusions.

“It serves a very good purpose—the wall, I mean— Mr. Glenarm.”

She was walking down the steps and I followed. I am not a man to suffer a lost school-girl to cross my lands unattended in a snow-storm; and the piazza of a boat-house is not, I submit, a pleasant loafing-place on a winter day. She marched before me, her hands in her pockets—I liked her particularly that way—with an easy swing and a light and certain step. Her remark about the wall did not encourage further conversation and I fell back upon the poets.

“Stone walls do not a prison make,Nor iron bars a cage,”

I quoted. Quoting poetry in a snow-storm while you stumble through a woodland behind a girl who shows no interest in either your prose or your rhymes has its embarrassments, particularly when you are breathing a trifle hard from the swift pace your auditor is leading you.

“I have heard that before,” she said, half-turning her face, then laughing as she hastened on.

Her brilliant cheeks were a delight to the eye. The snow swirled about her, whitened the crown of her red cap and clung to her shoulders. Have you ever seen snow-crystals gleam, break, dissolve in fair, soft, storm-blown hair? Do you know how a man will pledge his soul that a particular flake will never fade, never cease to rest upon a certain flying strand over a girlish temple? And he loses—his heart and his wager—in a breath! If you fail to understand these things, and are furthermore unfamiliar with the fact that the color in the cheeks of a girl who walks abroad in a driving snow-storm marks the favor of Heaven itself, then I waste time, and you will do well to rap at the door of another inn.

“I’d rather missed you,” I said; “and, really, I should have been over to apologize if I hadn’t been afraid.”

“Sister Theresa is rather fierce,” she declared. “And we’re not allowed to receive gentlemen callers,—it says so in the catalogue.”

“So I imagined. I trust Sister Theresa is improving.”

She marched before me, her hands in her pockets

“Yes; thank you.”

“And Miss Devereux,—she is quite well, I hope?”

She turned her head as though to listen more carefully, and her step slackened for a moment; then she hurried blithely forward.

“Oh, she’s always well, I believe.”

“You know her, of course.”

“Oh, rather! She gives us music lessons.”

“So Miss Devereux is the music-teacher, is she? Should you call her a popular teacher?”

“The girls call her”—she seemed moved to mirth by the recollection—“Miss Prim and Prosy.”

“Ugh!” I exclaimed sympathetically. “Tall and hungry-looking, with long talons that pound the keys with grim delight. I know the sort.”

“She’s a sight!“—and my guide laughed approvingly. “But we have to take her; she’s part of the treatment.”

“You speak of St. Agatha’s as though it were a sanatorium.”

“Oh, it’s not so bad! I’ve seen worse.”

“Where do most of the students come from,—all what you call Hoosiers?”

“Oh, no! They’re from all over—Cincinnati, Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis.”

“What the magazines call the Middle West.”

“I believe that is so. The bishop addressed us once as the flower of the Middle West, and made us really wish he’d come again.”

We were approaching the gate. Her indifference to the storm delighted me. Here, I thought in my admiration, is a real product of the western world. I felt that we had made strides toward such a comradeship as it is proper should exist between a school-girl in her teens and a male neighbor of twenty-seven. I was—going back to English fiction—the young squire walking home with the curate’s pretty young daughter and conversing with fine condescension.

“We girls all wish we could come over and help hunt the lost treasure. It must be simply splendid to live in a house where there’s a mystery,—secret passages and chests of doubloons and all that sort of thing! My! Squire Glenarm, I suppose you spend all your nights exploring secret passages.”

This free expression of opinion startled me, though she seemed wholly innocent of impertinence.

“Who says there’s any secret about the house?” I demanded.

“Oh, Ferguson, the gardener, and all the girls!”

“I fear Ferguson is drawing on his imagination.”

“Well, all the people in the village think so. I’ve heard the candy-shop woman speak of it often.”

“She’d better attend to her taffy,” I retorted.

“Oh, you mustn’t be sensitive about it! All us girls think it ever so romantic, and we call you sometimes the lord of the realm, and when we see you walking through the darkling wood at evenfall we say, ‘My lord is brooding upon the treasure chests.’ ”

This, delivered in the stilted tone of one who is half-quoting and half-improvising, was irresistibly funny, and I laughed with good will.

“I hope you’ve forgiven me—” I began, kicking the gate to knock off the snow, and taking the key from my pocket.

“But I haven’t, Mr. Glenarm. Your assumption is, to say the least, unwarranted,—I got that from a book!”

“It isn’t fair for you to know my name and for me not to know yours,” I said leadingly.

“You are perfectly right. You are Mr. John Glenarm —the gardener told me—and I am just Olivia. They don’t allow me to be called Miss yet. I’m very young, sir!”

“You’ve only told me half,”—and I kept my hand on the closed gate. The snow still fell steadily and the short afternoon was nearing its close. I did not like to lose her,—the life, the youth, the mirth for which she stood. The thought of Glenarm House amid the snow-hung wood and of the long winter evening that I must spend alone moved me to delay. Lights already gleamed in the school-buildings straight before us and the sight of them smote me with loneliness.

“Olivia Gladys Armstrong,” she said, laughing, brushed past me through the gate and ran lightly over the snow toward St. Agatha’s.

I read in the library until late, hearing the howl of the wind outside with satisfaction in the warmth and comfort of the great room. Bates brought in some sandwiches and a bottle of ale at midnight.

“If there’s nothing more, sir—”

“That is all, Bates.” And he went off sedately to his own quarters.

I was restless and in no mood for bed and mourned the lack of variety in my grandfather’s library. I moved about from shelf to shelf, taking down one book after another, and while thus engaged came upon a series of large volumes extra-illustrated in water-colors of unusual beauty. They occupied a lower shelf, and I sprawled on the floor, like a boy with a new picture-book, in my absorption, piling the great volumes about me. They were on related subjects pertaining to the French chateaux.

In the last volume I found a sheet of white note-paper no larger than my hand, a forgotten book-mark, I assumed, and half-crumpled it in my fingers before I noticed the lines of a pencil sketch on one side of it. I carried it to the table and spread it out.

It was not the bit of idle penciling it had appeared to be at first sight. A scale had evidently been followed and the lines drawn with a ruler. With such trifles my grandfather had no doubt amused himself. There was a long corridor indicated, but of this I could make nothing. I studied it for several minutes, thinking it might have been a tentative sketch of some part of the house. In turning it about under the candelabrum I saw that in several places the glaze had been rubbed from the paper by an eraser, and this piqued my curiosity. I brought a magnifying glass to bear upon the sketch. The drawing had been made with a hard pencil and the eraser had removed the lead, but a well-defined imprint remained.

I was able to make out the letters N. W. 3/4 to C.— a reference clearly enough to points of the compass and a distance. The wordravinewas scrawled over a rough outline of a doorway or opening of some sort, and then the phrase:

THE DOOR OF BEWILDERMENT

Now I am rather an imaginative person; that is why engineering captured my fancy. It was through his trying to make an architect (a person who quarrels with women about their kitchen sinks!) of a boy who wanted to be an engineer that my grandfather and I failed to hit it off. From boyhood I have never seen a great bridge or watched a locomotive climb a difficult hillside without a thrill; and a lighthouse still seems to me quite the finest monument a man can build for himself. My grandfather’s devotion to old churches and medieval houses always struck me as trifling and unworthy of a grown man. And fate was busy with my affairs that night, for, instead of lighting my pipe with the little sketch, I was strangely impelled to study it seriously.

I drew for myself rough outlines of the interior of Glenarm House as it had appeared to me, and then I tried to reconcile the little sketch with every part of it.

“The Door of Bewilderment” was the charm that held me. The phrase was in itself a lure. The man who had built a preposterous house in the woods of Indiana and called it “The House of a Thousand Candles” was quite capable of other whims; and as I bent over this scrap of paper in the candle-lighted library it occurred to me that possibly I had not done justice to my grandfather’s genius. My curiosity was thoroughly aroused as to the hidden corners of the queer old house, round which the wind shrieked tormentingly.

I went to my room, put on my corduroy coat for its greater warmth in going through the cold halls, took a candle and went below. One o’clock in the morning is not the most cheering hour for exploring the dark recesses of a strange house, but I had resolved to have a look at the ravine-opening and determine, if possible, whether it bore any relation to “The Door of Bewilderment.”

All was quiet in the great cellar; only here and there an area window rattled dolorously. I carried a tape-line with me and made measurements of the length and depth of the corridor and of the chambers that were set off from it. These figures I entered in my note-book for further use, and sat down on an empty nail-keg to reflect. The place was certainly substantial; the candle at my feet burned steadily with no hint of a draft; but I saw no solution of my problem. All the doors along the corridor were open, or yielded readily to my hand. I was losing sleep for nothing; my grandfather’s sketch was meaningless, and I rose and picked up my candle, yawning.

Then a curious thing happened. The candle, whose thin flame had risen unwaveringly, sputtered and went out as a sudden gust swept the corridor.

I had left nothing open behind me, and the outer doors of the house were always locked and barred. But some one had gained ingress to the cellar by an opening of which I knew nothing.

I faced the stairway that led up to the back hall of the house, when to my astonishment, steps sounded behind me and, turning, I saw, coming toward me, a man carrying a lantern. I marked his careless step; he was undoubtedly on familiar ground. As I watched him he paused, lifted the lantern to a level with his eyes and began sounding the wall with a hammer.

Here, undoubtedly, was my friend Morgan,—again! There was the same periodicity in the beat on the wall that I had heard in my own rooms. He began at the top and went methodically to the floor. I leaned against the wall where I stood and watched the lantern slowly coming toward me. The small revolver with which I had fired at his flying figure in the wood was in my pocket. It was just as well to have it out with the fellow now. My chances were as good as his, though I confess I did not relish the thought of being found dead the next morning in the cellar of my own house. It pleased my humor to let him approach in this way, unconscious that he was watched, until I should thrust my pistol into his face.

His arms grew tired when he was about ten feet from me and he dropped the lantern and hammer to his side, and swore under his breath impatiently.

Then he began again, with greater zeal. As he came nearer I studied his face in the lantern’s light with interest. His hat was thrust back, and I could see his jaw hard-set under his blond beard.

He took a step nearer, ran his eyes over the wall and resumed his tapping. The ceiling was something less than eight feet, and he began at the top. In settling himself for the new series of strokes he swayed toward me slightly, and I could hear his hard breathing. I was deliberating how best to throw myself upon him, but as I wavered he stepped back, swore at his ill-luck and flung the hammer to the ground.

“Thanks!” I shouted, leaping forward and snatching the lantern. “Stand just where you are!”

With the revolver in my right hand and the lantern held high in my left, I enjoyed his utter consternation, as my voice roared in the corridor.

“It’s too bad we meet under such strange circumstances, Morgan,” I said. “I’d begun to miss you; but I suppose you’ve been sleeping in the daytime to gather strength for your night prowling.”

“You’re a fool,” he growled. He was recovering from his fright,—I knew it by the gleam of his teeth in his yellow beard. His eyes, too, were moving restlessly about. He undoubtedly knew the house better than I did, and was considering the best means of escape. I did not know what to do with him now that I had him at the point of a pistol; and in my ignorance of his motives and my vague surmise as to the agency back of him, I was filled with uncertainty.

“You needn’t hold that thing quite so near,” he said, staring at me coolly.

“I’m glad it annoys you, Morgan,” I said. “It may help you to answer some questions I’m going to put to you.”

“So you want information, do you, Mr. Glenarm? I should think it would be beneath the dignity of a great man like you to ask a poor devil like me for help.”

“We’re not talking of dignity,” I said. “I want you to tell me how you got in here.”

He laughed.

“You’re a very shrewd one, Mr. Glenarm. I came in by the kitchen window, if you must know. I got in before your solemn jack-of-all-trades locked up, and I walked down to the end of the passage there”—he indicated the direction with a slight jerk of his head— “and slept until it was time to go to work. You can see how easy it was!”

I laughed now at the sheer assurance of the fellow.

“If you can’t lie better than that you needn’t try again. Face about now, and march!”

I put new energy into my tone, and he turned and walked before me down the corridor in the direction from which he had come. We were, I dare say, a pretty pair,—he tramping doggedly before me, I following at his heels with his lantern and my pistol. The situation had played prettily into my hands, and I had every intention of wresting from him the reason for his interest in Glenarm House and my affairs.

“Not so fast,” I admonished sharply.

“Excuse me,” he replied mockingly.

He was no common rogue; I felt the quality in him with a certain admiration for his scoundrelly talents— a fellow, I reflected, who was best studied at the point of a pistol.

I continued at his heels, and poked the muzzle of the revolver against his back from time to time to keep him assured of my presence,—a device that I was to regret a second later.

We were about ten yards from the end of the corridor when he flung himself backward upon me, threw his arms over his head and seized me about the neck, turning himself lithely until his fingers clasped my throat.

I fired blindly once, and felt the smoke of the revolver hot in my own nostrils. The lantern fell from my hand, and one or the other of us smashed it with our feet.

A wrestling match in that dark hole was not to my liking. I still held on to the revolver, waiting for a chance to use it, and meanwhile he tried to throw me, forcing me back against one side and then the other of the passage.

With a quick rush he flung me away, and in the same second I fired. The roar of the shot in the narrow corridor seemed interminable. I flung myself on the floor, expecting a return shot, and quickly enough a flash broke upon the darkness dead ahead, and I rose to my feet, fired again and leaped to the opposite side of the corridor and crouched there. We had adopted the same tactics, firing and dodging to avoid the target made by the flash of our pistols, and watching and listening after the roar of the explosions. It was a very pretty game, but destined not to last long. He was slowly retreating toward the end of the passage, where there was, I remembered, a dead wall. His only chance was to crawl through an area window I knew to be there, and this would, I felt sure, give him into my hands.

After five shots apiece there was a truce. The pungent smoke of the powder caused me to cough, and he laughed.

“Have you swallowed a bullet, Mr. Glenarm?” he called.

I could hear his feet scraping on the cement floor; he was moving away from me, doubtless intending to fire when he reached the area window and escape before I could reach him. I crept warily after him, ready to fire on the instant, but not wishing to throw away my last cartridge. That I resolved to keep for close quarters at the window.

He was now very near the end of the corridor; I heard his feet strike some boards that I remembered lay on the floor there, and I was nerved for a shot and a hand-to-hand struggle, if it came to that.

I was sure that he sought the window; I heard his hands on the wall as he felt for it. Then a breath of cold air swept the passage, and I knew he must be drawing himself up to the opening. I fired and dropped to the floor. With the roar of the explosion I heard him yell, but the expected return shot did not follow.

The pounding of my heart seemed to mark the passing of hours. I feared that my foe was playing some trick, creeping toward me, perhaps, to fire at close range, or to grapple with me in the dark. The cold air still whistled into the corridor, and I began to feel the chill of it. Being fired upon is disagreeable enough, but waiting in the dark for the shot is worse.

I rose and walked toward the end of the passage.

Then his revolver flashed and roared directly ahead, the flame of it so near that it blinded me. I fell forward confused and stunned, but shook myself together in a moment and got upon my feet. The draft of air no longer blew into the passage. Morgan had taken himself off through the window and closed it after him. I made sure of this by going to the window and feeling of it with my hands.

I went back and groped about for my candle, which I found without difficulty and lighted. I then returned to the window to examine the catch. To my utter astonishment it was fastened with staples, driven deep into the sash, in such way that it could not possibly have been opened without the aid of tools. I tried it at every point. Not only was it securely fastened, but it could not possibly be opened without an expenditure of time and labor.

There was no doubt whatever that Morgan knew more about Glenarm House than I did. It was possible, but not likely, that he had crept past me in the corridor and gone out through the house, or by some other cellar window. My eyes were smarting from the smoke of the last shot, and my cheek stung where the burnt powder had struck my face. I was alive, but in my vexation and perplexity not, I fear, grateful for my safety. It was, however, some consolation to feel sure I had winged the enemy.

I gathered up the fragments of Morgan’s lantern and went back to the library. The lights in half the candlesticks had sputtered out. I extinguished the remainder and started to my room.

Then, in the great dark hall, I heard a muffled tread as of some one following me,—not on the great staircase, nor in any place I could identify,—yet unmistakably on steps of some sort beneath or above me. My nerves were already keyed to a breaking pitch, and the ghost-like tread in the hall angered me—Morgan, or his ally, Bates, I reflected, at some new trick. I ran into my room, found a heavy walking-stick and set off for Bates’ room on the third floor. It was always easy to attribute any sort of mischief to the fellow, and undoubtedly he was crawling through the house somewhere on an errand that boded no good to me.

It was now past two o’clock and he should have been asleep and out of the way long ago. I crept to his room and threw open the door without, I must say, the slightest idea of finding him there. But Bates, the enigma, Bates, the incomparable cook, the perfect servant, sat at a table, the light of several candles falling on a book over which he was bent with that maddening gravity he had never yet in my presence thrown off.

He rose at once, stood at attention, inclining his head slightly.

“Yes, Mr. Glenarm.”

“Yes, the devil!” I roared at him, astonished at finding him,—sorry, I must say, that he was there. The stick fell from my hands. I did not doubt he knew perfectly well that I had some purpose in breaking in upon him. I was baffled and in my rage floundered for words to explain myself.

“I thought I heard some one in the house. I don’t want you prowling about in the night, do you hear?”

“Certainly not, sir,” he replied in a grieved tone.

I glanced at the book he had been reading. It was a volume of Shakespeare’s comedies, open at the first scene of the last act ofThe Winter’s Tale.

“Quite a pretty bit of work that, I should say,” he remarked. “It was one of my late master’s favorites.”

“Go to the devil!” I bawled at him, and went down to my room and slammed the door in rage and chagrin.

Going to bed at three o’clock on a winter morning in a house whose ways are disquieting, after a duel in which you escaped whole only by sheer good luck, does not fit one for sleep. When I finally drew the covers over me it was to lie and speculate upon the events of the night in connection with the history of the few weeks I had spent at Glenarm. Larry had suggested in New York that Pickering was playing some deep game, and I, myself, could not accept Pickering’s statement that my grandfather’s large fortune had proved to be a myth. If Pickering had not stolen or dissipated it, where was it concealed? Morgan was undoubtedly looking for something of value or he would not risk his life in the business; and it was quite possible that he was employed by Pickering to search for hidden property. This idea took strong hold of me, the more readily, I fear, since I had always been anxious to see evil in Pickering. There was, to be sure, the unknown alternative heir, but neither she nor Sister Theresa was, I imagined, a person capable of hiring an assassin to kill me.

On reflection I dismissed the idea of appealing to the county authorities, and I never regretted that resolution. The seat of Wabana County was twenty miles away, the processes of law were unfamiliar, and I wished to avoid publicity. Morgan might, of course, have been easily disposed of by an appeal to the Annandale constable, but now that I suspected Pickering of treachery the caretaker’s importance dwindled. I had waited all my life for a chance at Arthur Pickering, and in this affair I hoped to draw him into the open and settle with him.

I slept presently, but woke at my usual hour, and after a tub felt ready for another day. Bates served me, as usual, a breakfast that gave a fair aspect to the morning. I was alert for any sign of perturbation in him; but I had already decided that I might as well look for emotion in a stone wall as in this placid, colorless serving man. I had no reason to suspect him of complicity in the night’s affair, but I had no faith in him, and merely waited until he should throw himself more boldly into the game.

By my plate next morning I found this note, written in a clear, bold, woman’s hand:

The Sisters of St. Agatha trust that the intrusion upon his grounds by Miss Armstrong, one of their students, has caused Mr. Glenarm no annoyance. The Sisters beg that this infraction of their discipline will be overlooked, and they assure Mr. Glenarm that it will not recur.

An unnecessary apology! The note-paper was of the best quality. At the head of the page “St. Agatha’s, Annandale” was embossed in purple. It was the first note I had received from a woman for a long time, and it gave me a pleasant emotion. One of the Sisters I had seen beyond the wall undoubtedly wrote it—possibly Sister Theresa herself. A clever woman, that! Thoroughly capable of plucking money from guileless old gentlemen! Poor Olivia! born for freedom, but doomed to a pent-up existence with a lot of nuns! I resolved to send her a box of candy sometime, just to annoy her grim guardians. Then my own affairs claimed attention.

“Bates,” I asked, “do you know what Mr. Glenarm did with the plans for the house?”

He started slightly. I should not have noticed it if I had not been keen for his answer.

“No, sir. I can’t put my hand upon them, sir.”

“That’s all very well, Bates, but you didn’t answer my question. Do you know where they are?I’llputmyhand on them if you will kindly tell me where they’re kept.”

“Mr. Glenarm, I fear very much that they have been destroyed. I tried to find them before you came, to tell you the whole truth, sir; but they must have been made ’way with.”

“That’s very interesting, Bates. Will you kindly tell me whom you suspect of destroying them? The toast again, please.”

His hand shook as he passed the plate.

“I hardly like to say, sir, when it’s only a suspicion.”

“Of course I shouldn’t ask you to incriminate yourself, but I’ll have to insist on my question. It may have occurred to you, Bates, that I’m in a sense—in a sense, mind you—the master here.”

“Well, I should say, if you press me, that I fear Mr. Glenarm, your grandfather, burned the plans when he left here the last time. I hope you will pardon me, sir, for seeming to reflect upon him.”

“Reflect upon the devil! What was his idea, do you suppose?”

“I think, sir, if you will pardon—”

“Don’t be so fussy!” I snapped. “Damn your pardon, and go on!”

“He wanted you to study out the place for yourself, sir. It was dear to his heart, this house. He set his heart upon having you enjoy it—”

“I like the word—go ahead.”

“And I suppose there are things about it that he wished you to learn for yourself.”

“You know them, of course, and are watching me to see when I’m hot or cold, like kids playing hide the handkerchief.”

The fellow turned and faced me across the table.

“Mr. Glenarm, as I hope God may be merciful to me in the last judgment, I don’t know any more than you do.”

“You were here with Mr. Glenarm all the time he was building the house, but you never saw walls built that weren’t what they appeared to be, or doors made that didn’t lead anywhere.”

I summoned all my irony and contempt for this arraignment. He lifted his hand, as though making oath.

“As God sees me, that is all true. I was here to care for the dead master’s comfort and not to spy on him.”

“And Morgan, your friend, what about him?”

“I wish I knew, sir.”

“I wish to the devil you did,” I said, and flung out of the room and into the library.

At eleven o’clock I heard a pounding at the great front door and Bates came to announce a caller, who was now audibly knocking the snow from his shoes in the outer hall.

“The Reverend Paul Stoddard, sir.”

The chaplain of St. Agatha’s was a big fellow, as I had remarked on the occasion of his interview with Olivia Gladys Armstrong by the wall. His light brown hair was close-cut; his smooth-shaven face was bright with the freshness of youth. Here was a sturdy young apostle without frills, but with a vigorous grip that left my hand tingling. His voice was deep and musical,—a voice that suggested sincerity and inspired confidence.

“I’m afraid I haven’t been neighborly, Mr. Glenarm. I was called away from home a few days after I heard of your arrival, and I have just got back. I blew in yesterday with the snow-storm.”

He folded his arms easily and looked at me with cheerful directness, as though politely interested in what manner of man I might be.

“It was a fine storm; I got a great day out of it,” I said. “An Indiana snow-storm is something I have never experienced before.”

“This is my second winter. I came out here because I wished to do some reading, and thought I’d rather do it alone than in a university.”

“Studious habits are rather forced on one out here, I should say. In my own case my course of reading is all cut out for me.”

He ran his eyes over the room.

“The Glenarm collection is famous,—the best in the country, easily. Mr. Glenarm, your grandfather, was certainly an enthusiast. I met him several times; he was a trifle hard to meet,”—and the clergyman smiled.

I felt rather uncomfortable, assuming that he probably knew I was undergoing discipline, and why my grandfather had so ordained it. The Reverend Paul Stoddard was so simple, unaffected and manly a fellow that I shrank from the thought that I must appear to him an ungrateful blackguard whom my grandfather had marked with obloquy.

“My grandfather had his whims; but he was a fine, generous-hearted old gentleman,” I said.

“Yes; in my few interviews with him he surprised me by the range of his knowledge. He was quite able to instruct me in certain curious branches of church history that had appealed to him.”

“You were here when he built the house, I suppose?”

My visitor laughed cheerfully.

“I was on my side of the barricade for a part of the time. You know there was a great deal of mystery about the building of this house. The country-folk hereabouts can’t quite get over it. They have a superstition that there’s treasure buried somewhere on the place. You see, Mr. Glenarm wouldn’t employ any local labor. The work was done by men he brought from afar,—none of them, the villagers say, could speak English. They were all Greeks or Italians.”

“I have heard something of the kind,” I remarked, feeling that here was a man who with a little cultivating might help me to solve some of my riddles.

“You haven’t been on our side of the wall yet? Well, I promise not to molest your hidden treasure if you’ll be neighborly.”

“I fear there’s a big joke involved in the hidden treasure,” I replied. “I’m so busy staying at home to guard it that I have no time for social recreation.”

He looked at me quickly to see whether I was joking. His eyes were steady and earnest. The Reverend Paul Stoddard impressed me more and more agreeably. There was a suggestion of a quiet strength about him that drew me to him.

“I suppose every one around here thinks of nothing but that I’m at Glenarm to earn my inheritance. My residence here must look pretty sordid from the outside.”

“Mr. Glenarm’s will is a matter of record in the county, of course. But you are too hard on yourself. It’s nobody’s business if your grandfather wished to visit his whims on you. I should say, in my own case, that I don’t consider it any of my business what you are here for. I didn’t come over to annoy you or to pry into your affairs. I get lonely now and then, and thought I’d like to establish neighborly relations.”

“Thank you; I appreciate your coming very much,” —and my heart warmed under the manifest kindness of the man.

“And I hope”—he spoke for the first time with restraint —“I hope nothing may prevent your knowing Sister Theresa and Miss Devereux. They are interesting and charming—the only women about here of your own social status.”

My liking for him abated slightly. He might be a detective, representing the alternative heir, for all I knew, and possibly Sister Theresa was a party to the conspiracy.

“In time, no doubt, in time, I shall know them,” I answered evasively.

“Oh, quite as you like!”—and he changed the subject. We talked of many things,—of outdoor sports, with which he showed great familiarity, of universities, of travel and adventure. He was a Columbia man and had spent two years at Oxford.

“Well,” he exclaimed, “this has been very pleasant, but I must run. I have just been over to see Morgan, the caretaker at the resort village. The poor fellow accidentally shot himself yesterday, cleaning his gun or something of that sort, and he has an ugly hole in his arm that will shut him in for a month or worse. He gave me an errand to do for him. He’s a conscientious fellow and wished me to wire for him to Mr. Pickering that he’d been hurt, but was attending to his duties. Pickering owns a cottage over there, and Morgan has charge of it. You know Pickering, of course?”

I looked my clerical neighbor straight in the eye, a trifle coldly perhaps. I was wondering why Morgan, with whom I had enjoyed a duel in my own cellar only a few hours before, should be reporting his injury to Arthur Pickering.

“I think I have seen Morgan about here,” I said.

“Oh, yes! He’s a woodsman and a hunter—our Nimrod of the lake.”

“A good sort, very likely!”

“I dare say. He has sometimes brought me ducks during the season.”

“To be sure! They shoot ducks at night,—these Hoosier hunters,—so I hear!”

He laughed as he shook himself into his greatcoat.

“That’s possible, though unsportsmanlike. But we don’t have to look a gift mallard in the eye.”

We laughed together. I found that it was easy to laugh with him.

“By the way, I forgot to get Pickering’s address from Morgan. If you happen to have it—”

“With pleasure,” I said. “Alexis Building, Broadway, New York.”

“Good! That’s easy to remember,” he said, smiling and turning up his coat collar. “Don’t forget me; I’m quartered in a hermit’s cell back of the chapel, and I believe we can find many matters of interest to talk about.”

“I’m confident of it,” I said, glad of the sympathy and cheer that seemed to emanate from his stalwart figure.

I threw on my overcoat and walked to the gate with him, and saw him hurry toward the village with long strides.

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