Entering the dark passageway, Mr. Magee made his way to the door of the annex. He tried it. It was locked. But as he turned away, he heard voices on the other side.

Mr. Magee had barely enough time to extinguish his candle and slip into the shadows of the corner. The door of the annex opened. A man stepped out into the passageway. He stood there The light from a candle held by some one in the doorway whom Mr. Magee could not see fell full upon his face—the bespectacled wise face of Professor Thaddeus Bolton.

"Better luck next time," said the professor.

"Keep an eye an him," said the voice from inside. "If he tries to leave the inn there'll be a big row. We must be in on it—and win."

"I imagine," said Professor Bolton, smiling his academic smile, "that the inmates of Baldpate will make to-morrow a rather interesting day for him."

"It will be an interesting day for every one," answered the voice.

"If I should manage to secure the package, by any chance," the professor went on, "I shall undoubtedly need your help in getting away with it. Let us arrange a signal. Should a window of my room be open at any time to-morrow, you will know the money is in my hands."

"Very good," replied the other. "Good night—and good luck."

"The same to you," answered Professor Bolton. The door was closed, and the old man moved off down the passageway.

After him crept Mr. Magee. He followed the professor to the east balcony, and saw him pause at the open window of number seven. There the old man looked slyly about, as though in doubt. He peered into the room, and one foot was across the sill when Mr. Magee came up and touched him on the arm.

Professor Bolton leaped in evident fright out upon the balcony.

"It's—it's a wonderful night," he said. "I was out for a little walk on the balcony, enjoying it. Seeing your open window, I was afraid—"

"The night you speak so highly of," replied Mr. Magee, "is at your left. You have lost your way. Good night, Professor."

He stepped inside and closed the window. Then he pulled down the curtains in both rooms of his suite, and spent some time exploring. Finally he paused before the fireplace, and with the aid of a knife unloosed a brick. Under this he placed the package of money, removing the traces of his act as best he could.

"Now," he said, standing up, "I'm a regular hermit with a buried treasure, as per all hermit specifications. To-morrow I'm going to hand my treasure to somebody—it's too much for a man who came up here to escape the excitement and melodrama of the world."

He looked at his watch. It was past three o'clock. Entering the inner room, for the second time that night he sought to sleep. "They can't play without me—I've got the ball," he repeated with a smile. And, safe in this thought, he closed his eyes, and slumbered.



CHAPTER X

THE COLD GRAY DAWN

The gayest knight must have a morning after. Mr. Magee awakened to his to find suite seven wrapped again in its favorite polar atmosphere. Filling the door leading to the outer room, he beheld the cause of his awakening—the mayor of Reuton. Mr. Cargan regarded him with the cold steely eye of a Disraeli in action, but when he spoke he opened the jaws of a cocktail mixer.

"Well, young fellow," he remarked, "it seems to me it was time you got up and faced the responsibilities of the day. First of which, I may mention, is a little talk with me."

He stepped into the room, and through the doorway he vacated Mr. Max came slinking. The unlovely face of the foe of suspicion was badly bruised, and he looked upon the world with no cheerful eye. Pushing aside one of the frail bedroom chairs as untrustworthy, the mayor sat down on the edge of Mr. Magee's bed. It creaked in protest.

"You used us pretty rough last night in the snow," Cargan went on. "That's why I ain't disposed to go in for kid gloves and diplomacy this morning. It's my experience that when you're dealing with a man who's got the good old Irish name of Magee, it's best to hit first and debate afterward."

"I—I used you roughly, Mr. Cargan?" said Magee.

"No debate, mind you," protested the mayor. "Lou and me are making this morning call to inquire after a little package that went astray somewhere last night. There's two courses open to you—hand over the package or let us take it. I'll give you a tip—the first is the best. If we have to take it, we might get real rough in our actions."

Mr. Max slipped closer to the bed, an ugly look on his face. The mayor glared fixedly into Magee's eyes. The knight who fought for fair ladies in the snow lay on his pillow and considered briefly.

"I get what I go after," remarked Cargan emphatically.

"Yes," sparred Magee, "but the real point is keeping what you get after you've gone after it. You didn't make much of an impression on me last night in that line, Mr. Cargan."

"I never cared much for humor," replied the mayor, "especially at this early hour of the morning."

"And I hate a fresh guy," put in Max, "like poison."

"I'm not fresh," Mr. Magee smiled, "I'm stating facts. You say you've come for that package. All right—but you've come to the wrong room. I haven't got it."

"The hell you haven't," roared the mayor. "Lou, look about a bit."

"Look about all you like," agreed Magee. "You won't find it. Mr. Cargan, I admit that I laid for you last night. I saw you open the safe according to the latest approved methods, and I saw you come forth with a package of money. But I wasn't rough with you. I might have been, to be frank, but somebody beat me to it."

"Who?"

"The man with the seventh key, I suppose. The man Bland heard walking about last night when we were at dinner. Don't tell me you didn't see him in that mix-up at the foot of the steps?"

"Well—I did think there was another guy," the mayor answered, "but Lou said I was crazy."

"Lou does you an injustice. There was another guy, and if you are anxious to recover your precious package, I advise you to wake him up to the responsibilities of the day, not me."

The mayor considered. Mr. Max, who had hastily made the rounds of the three rooms, came back with empty hands.

"Well," said the mayor, "I might as well admit it. I'm up in the air. I don't know just at this minute where to get off. But that state of affairs don't last long with me, young fellow. I'll go to the bottom of this before the day is out, believe me. And if I can't do anything else, I'll take you back to Reuton myself and throw you in jail for robbery."

"I wouldn't do that," smiled Magee. "Think of the awful job of explaining to the white necktie crowd how you happened to be dynamiting a safe on Baldpate Mountain at midnight."

"Oh, I guess I can get around that," said the mayor. "That money belongs to a friend of mine—Andy Rutter. I happen to go to the inn for a little rest, and I grab you dynamiting the safe. I'll keep an eye on you to-day, Mr. Magee. And let me tell you now that if I catch you or any of the bunch that's with you trying to make a getaway from Baldpate, there's going to be a war break out."

"I don't know about the other hermits," laughed Magee, "but personally, I expect to be here for several weeks to come. Whew! It's cold in here. Where's the hermit? Why hasn't he been up to fix my fire?"

"Yes, where is he?" repeated Mr. Cargan. "That's what everybody'd like to know. He hasn't showed up. Not a sign of breakfast, and me as hollow as a reformer's victory."

"He's backslid," cried Magee.

"The quitter," sneered Max. "It's only a quitter would live on the mountain in a shack, anyhow."

"You're rather hard on poor old Peters," remarked Magee, "but when I think that I have to get up and dress in a refrigerating plant—I can't say I blame you. If only the fire were lighted—"

He smiled his most ingratiating smile on his companion.

"By the way, Mr. Cargan, you're up and dressed. I've read a lot of magazine articles about you, and they one and all agree that you're a good fellow. You'll find kindling and paper beside the hearth."

"What!" The mayor's roar seemed to shake the windows. "Young man, with a nerve like yours, you could wheedle the price of a battleship from Carnegie. I—I—" He stood for a moment gazing almost in awe at Magee. Then he burst forth into a whole-souled laugh. "I am a good fellow," he said. "I'll show you."

He went into the other room, and despite the horrified protests of Lou Max, busied himself amid the ashes of the fireplace. When he had a blaze under way, Mr. Magee came shivering from the other room and held out his hand.

"Mr. Cargan," he laughed, "you're a prince." He noted with interest that the mayor's broad shoes were mighty near two hundred thousand, dollars.

While Mr. Magee drew on his clothes, the mayor and Max sat thoughtfully before the fire, the former with his pudgy hands folded over the vast expanse where no breakfast reposed. Mr. Magee explained to them that the holder of the sixth key had arrived.

"A handsome young lady," he remarked; "her name is Myra Thornhill."

"Old Henry Thornhill's daughter," reflected the mayor. "Well, seems I've sort of lost the habit of being surprised now. I tell you, Lou, we're breaking into the orchid division up here."

While Mr. Magee shaved—in ice-cold water, another black mark against the Hermit of Baldpate—he turned over in his mind the events of the night before. The vigil in the office, the pleading of the fair girl on the balcony, the battle by the steps, the sudden appearance of Miss Thornhill, the figure in his room, the conversation by the annex door—like a moving picture film the story of that weird night unrolled itself. The film was not yet at an end. He had given himself the night to think. Soon he would stand before the girl of the station; soon he must answer her questions. What was he to do with the fortune that lay beneath the feet of the mayor of Reuton at this minute? He hardly knew.

He was ready to descend at last, and came into the parlor of his suite with greatcoat and hat. In reply to Mr. Cargan's unasked question, he said:

"I'm going up the mountain presently to reason with our striking cook."

"You ain't going to leave this inn, Magee," said the mayor.

"Not even to bring back a cook. Come, Mr. Cargan, be reasonable. You may go with me, if you suspect my motives."

They went out into the hall, and Mr. Magee passed down the corridor to the farther end, where he rapped on the door of Miss Thornhill's room. She appeared almost immediately, buried beneath furs and wraps.

"You must be nearly frozen," remarked Mr. Magee pityingly. "You and your maid come down to the office. I want you to meet the other guests."

"I'll come," she replied. "Mr. Magee, I've a confession to make. I invented the maid. It seemed so horribly unconventional and shocking—I couldn't admit that I was alone. That was why I wouldn't let you build a fire for me."

"Don't worry," smiled Magee. "You'll find we have all the conveniences up here. I'll present you to a chaperon shortly—a Mrs. Norton, who is here with her daughter. Allow me to introduce Mr. Cargan and Mr. Max."

The girl bowed with a rather startled air, and Mr. Cargan mumbled something that had "pleasure" in it. In the office they found Professor Bolton and Mr. Bland sitting gloomily before the fireplace.

"Got the news, Magee?" asked the haberdasher. "Peters has done a disappearing act."

It was evident to Magee that everybody looked upon Peters as his creature, and laid the hermit's sins at his door. He laughed.

"I'm going to head a search party shortly," he said. "Don't I detect the odor of coffee in the distance?"

"Mrs. Norton," remarked Professor Bolton dolefully, "has kindly consented to do what she can."

The girl of the station came through the dining-room door. It was evident she had no share in the general gloom that the hermit's absence cast over Baldpate. Her eyes were bright with the glories of morning on a mountain; in their depths there was no room for petty annoyances.

"Good morning," she said to Mr. Magee. "Isn't it bracing? Have you been outside? Oh, I—"

"Miss Norton—Miss Thornhill," explained Magee. "Miss Thornhill has the sixth key, you know. She came last night without any of us knowing."

With lukewarm smiles the two girls shook hands. Outwardly the glances they exchanged were nonchalant and casual, but somehow Mr. Magee felt that among the matters they established were social position, wit, cunning, guile, and taste in dress.

"May I help with the coffee?" asked Miss Thornhill.

"Only to drink it," replied the girl of the station. "It's all made now, you see."

As if in proof of this, Mrs. Norton appeared in the dining-room door with a tray, and simultaneously opened an endless monologue:

"I don't know what you men will say to this, I'm sure—nothing in the house but some coffee and a few crackers—not even any canned soup, and I thought from the way things went yesterday he had ten thousand cans of it at the very least—but men are all alike—what name did you say?—oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure—excuse my not shaking hands—as I was saying, men are all alike—Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out—"

She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly.

"Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency—"

"A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I—"

"Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes.

"Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things."

While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat.

"I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?"

"Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means."

With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant.

"Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max.

"Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear."

"Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam."

"I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place."

"Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee.

Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels.

The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain.

Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out.

Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come.

"I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of—quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you—"

The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming.

"I'm so glad," she said. "But why—why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had."

"That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to—very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody—the man with the seventh key, I guess—did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in."

"Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then—"

"I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs—I saw her."

The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there.

"Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money."

"And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully.

"Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I—I did wait."

He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought.

"I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But—I'm going to give you that package yet."

The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears.

"You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others—and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you—now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money—you don't intend to now."

"On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room."

"Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?"

Oh, the perversity of women!

"It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know—" Her face was cold and expressionless.

"And I wanted to believe in you—so much," she said.

"Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?"

She plodded on through the snow.

"You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about—on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will—the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?"

"I hate you," said the girl simply.

She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words?

"I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!"

Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid.

"I love you," he continued. Idiot!

Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night—a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this—instead.

"I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe."

Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain.

The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them.

"So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'hotes with red wine."

"A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?"

She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest.

"I—" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness.

Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door.



CHAPTER XI

A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS

"Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest.

"U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech.

The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color.

"Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?"

He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards—furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen.

"Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?"

"A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee.

"We have come to plead"—began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face.

"I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out—in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once."

He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown.

"It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time—maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion."

Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders.

"My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee."

"Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance."

"You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world—the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you."

"I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me."

"I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone."

"Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then—the true romance—the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him—he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?"

But Peters shook his head again.

"I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath—I got to be a hermit."

"Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it."

"You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural—it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true."

"And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world."

"Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life—especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them—long, lean, like an eel—stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'"

"It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements."

"I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now."

The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest.

"New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me."

The hermit's eyes strayed far away—down the mountain—and beyond.

"New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago—I see the candles lit on the Great White Way—I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!"

Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain.

"I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back."

A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face.

"I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid."

"Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee.

"Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain—then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of—so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's—my wife. New York—it's my town.

"That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of Woman, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation."

Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door.

"Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking."

"One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie—your masterpiece. We must hear about that."

"Yes—spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max.

"Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable—it ain't very short."

"Please," beamed Miss Norton.

With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close.

"It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast.

"Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'hotes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why.

"I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard.

"'She cast you off?' I asked.

"'She threw me down,' said he.

"Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me—the lie—the great glorious lie—and I told it."

The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle.

"'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel—or Marie—or what was it?—spoke to you.'

"I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage—a fairy sprite. I loved her—worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear—a sweet tear of sorrow at parting.

"'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books—the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.'

"He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed—I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture—as I saw her last—with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann.

"As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship—to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me.

"We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone.

"'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.'

"I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.'

"McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down—there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went—on the wings of love. It was two blocks—but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!'

"McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City—I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again."

The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space.

"That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit."

"As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton.

"Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend—so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized."

"Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max.

"I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here—in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister."

"But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character."

Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes—eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved.

"Just one tiny day," she pleaded.

Mr. Peters sighed. He rose.

"I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead."

"Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror.

The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain.

"Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how Caesar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels."

Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before.

"I'll make you believe in me yet," he said.

She did not turn her head.

"The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you—tell me you'll believe then."

"Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money—no one must know about it."

"No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me."

They walked on in silence. Then shyly the girl turned her head. Oh, most assuredly, she was desirable. Clumsy as had been his declaration, Mr. Magee resolved to stick to it through eternity.

"I'm sorry I spoke as I did," she said. "Will you forgive me?"

"Forgive you?" he cried. "Why, I—"

"And now," she interrupted, "let us talk of other things. Of ships, and shoes, and sealing-wax—"

"All the topics in the world," he replied, "can lead to but one with me—"

"Ships?" asked the girl.

"For honeymoons," he suggested.

"Shoes?"

"In some circles of society, I believe they are flung at bridal parties."

"And sealing-wax?"

"On the license, isn't it?" he queried.

"I'll not try you on cabbage and kings," laughed the girl. "Please, oh, please, don't fail me. You won't, will you?" Her face was serious. "You see, it means so very much to me."

"Fail you?" cried Magee. "I'd hardly do that now. In ten minutes that package will be in your hands—along with my fate, my lady."

"I shall be so relieved." She turned her face away, there was a faint flush in the cheek toward Mr. Magee. "And—happy," she whispered under her breath.

They were then at the great front door of Baldpate Inn.



CHAPTER XII

WOE IN NUMBER SEVEN

Inside, before the office fire, Miss Thornhill read a magazine in the indolent fashion so much affected at Baldpate Inn during the heated term; while the mayor of Reuton chatted amiably with the ponderously coy Mrs. Norton. Into this circle burst the envoys to the hermitage, flushed, energetic, snowflaked.

"Hail to the chef who in triumph advances!" cried Mr. Magee.

He pointed to the door, through which Mr. Max was leading the captured Mr. Peters.

"You got him, didyu?" rasped Mrs. Norton.

"Without the use of anesthetics," answered Magee. "Everybody ready for one of Mr. Peters' inimitable lunches?"

"Put me down at the head of the list," contributed the mayor.

Myra Thornhill laid down her magazine, and fixed her great black eyes upon the radiant girl in corduroy.

"And was the walk in the morning air," she asked, "all you expected?"

"All, and much more," laughed Miss Norton, mischievously regarding the man who had babbled to her of love on the mountain. "By the way, enjoy Mr. Peters while you can. He's back for just one day."

"Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow the cook leaves, as the fellow says," supplemented Mr. Max, removing his overcoat.

"How about a quick lunch, Peters?" inquired Magee.

"Out of what, I'd like to know," put in Mrs. Norton. "Not a thing in the house to eat. Just like a man."

"You didn't look in the right place, ma'am," replied Mr. Peters with relish. "I got supplies for a couple of days in the kitchen."

"Well, what's the sense in hiding 'em?" the large lady inquired.

"It ain't hiding—it's system," explained Mr. Peters. "Something women don't understand." He came close to Mr. Magee, and whispered low: "You didn't warn me there was another of 'em."

"The last, on my word of honor," Magee told him.

"The last," sneered Mr. Peters. "There isn't any last up here." And with a sidelong glance at the new Eve in his mountain Eden, he turned away to the kitchen.

"Now," whispered Magee to Miss Norton, "I'll get you that package. I'll prove that it was for you I fought and bled the mayor of Reuton. Watch for our chance—when I see you again I'll have it in my pocket."

"You mustn't fail me," she replied. "It means so much."

Mr. Magee started for the stairs. Between him and them loomed suddenly the great bulk of Mr. Cargan. His hard menacing eyes looked full into Magee's.

"I want to speak to you, young fellow," he remarked.

"I'm flattered," said Magee, "that you find my company so enchanting. In ten minutes I'll be ready for another interview."

"You're ready now," answered the mayor, "even if you don't know it." His tone was that of one correcting a child. He took Mr. Magee's arm in a grip which recalled to that gentleman a fact the muckraking stories always dwelt on—how this Cargan had, in the old days, "put away his man" in many shady corners of a great city.

"Come over here," said Cargan. He led the way to a window. Over his shoulder Magee noted the troubled eyes of Miss Norton following. "Sit down. I've been trying to dope you out, and I think I've got you. I've seen your kind before. Every few months one of 'em breezes into Reuton, spends a whole day talking to a few rats I've had to exterminate from politics, and then flies back to New York with a ten-page story of my vicious career all ready for the linotypers. Yes, sir—I got you. You write sweet things for the magazines."

"Think so?" inquired Magee.

"Know it," returned the mayor heartily. "So you're out after old Jim Cargan's scalp again, are you? I thought that now, seeing stories on the corruption of the courts is so plentiful, you'd let the shame of the city halls alone for a while. But—well, I guess I'm what you guys call good copy. Big, brutal, uneducated, picturesque—you see I read them stories myself. How long will the American public stand being ruled by a man like this, when it might be authorizing pretty boys with kid gloves to get next to the good things? That's the dope, ain't it—the old dope of the reform gang—the ballyhoo of the bunch that can't let the existing order stand? Don't worry, I ain't going to get started on that again. But I want to talk to you serious—like a father. There was a young fellow like you once—"

"Like me?"

"Exactly. He was out working on long hours and short pay for the reform gang, and he happened to get hold of something that a man I knew—a man high up in public office—wanted, and wanted bad. The young fellow was going to get two hundred dollars for the article he was writing. My friend offered him twenty thousand to call it off. What'd the young fellow do?"

"Wrote the article, of course," said Magee.

"Now—now," reproved Cargan. "That remark don't fit in with the estimate I've made of you. I think you're a smart boy. Don't disappoint me. This young fellow I speak of—he was smart, all right. He thought the matter over. He knew the reform bunch, through and through. All glory and no pay, serving them. He knew how they chased bubbles, and made a lot of noise, and never got anywhere in the end. He thought it over, Magee, the same as you're going to do. 'You're on,' says this lad, and added five figures to his roll as easy as we'd add a nickel. He had brains, that guy."

"And no conscience," commented Magee.

"Conscience," said Mr. Cargan, "ain't worth much except as an excuse for a man that hasn't made good to give his wife. How much did you say you was going to get for this article?"

Mr. Magee looked him coolly in the eye.

"If it's ever written," he said, "it will be a two-hundred-thousand-dollar story."

"There ain't anything like that in it for you," replied the mayor. "Think over what I've told you."

"I'm afraid," smiled Magee, "I'm too busy to think."

He again crossed the office floor to the stairway. Before the fire sat the girl of the station, her big eyes upon him, pleadingly. With a reassuring smile in her direction, he darted up the stairs.

"And now," he thought, as he closed and locked the door of number seven behind him, "for the swag. So Cargan would give twenty thousand for that little package. I don't blame him."

He opened a window and glanced out along the balcony. It was deserted in either direction; its snowy floor was innocent of footprints. Re-entering number seven, he knelt by the fireplace and dug up the brick under which lay the package so dear to many hearts on Baldpate Mountain.

"I might have known," he muttered.

For the money was gone. He dug up several of the bricks, and rummaged about beneath them. No use. The fat little bundle of bills had flown. Only an ugly hole gaped up at him.

He sat down. Of course! What a fool he had been to suppose that such treasure as this would stay long in a hiding-place so obvious. He who had made a luxurious living writing tales of the chase of gems and plate and gold had bungled the thing from the first. He could hammer out on a typewriter wild plots and counter-plots—with a boarding-school girl's cupid busy all over the place. But he could not live them.

A boarding-school cupid! Good lord! He remembered the eyes of the girl in blue corduroy as they had met his when he turned to the stairs. What would she say now? On this he had gaily staked her faith in him. This was to be the test of his sincerity, the proof of his devotion. And now he must go to her, looking like a fool once more—go to her and confess that again he had failed her.

His rage blazed forth. So they had "got to him", after all. Who? He thought of the smooth crafty mountain of a man who had detained him a moment ago. Who but Cargan and Max, of course? They had found his childish hiding-place, and the money had come home to their eager hands. No doubt they were laughing slyly at him now.

Well, he would show them yet. He got up and walked the floor. Once he had held them up in the snow and spoiled their little game—he would do it again. How? When? He did not know. His soul cried for action of some sort, but he was up against a blind alley, and he knew it.

He unlocked the door of number seven. To go down-stairs, to meet the sweet eagerness of the girl who depended on him, to confess himself tricked—it took all the courage he had. Why had it all happened, anyhow? Confound it, hadn't he come up here to be alone with his thoughts? But, brighter side, it had given him her—or it would give him her before the last card was played. He shut his teeth tightly, and went down the stairs.

Mr. Bland had added himself to the group about the fire. Quickly the eyes of Miss Norton met Magee's. She was trembling with excitement. Cargan, huge, red, cheery, got in Magee's path once more.

"I'll annihilate this man," thought Magee.

"I've been figuring," said the mayor, "that was one thing he didn't have to contend with. No, sir, there wasn't any bright young men hunting up old Napoleon and knocking him in the monthly magazines. They didn't go down to Sardinia and pump it out of the neighbors that he started business on borrowed money, and that his father drank more than was good for him. They didn't run illustrated articles about the diamonds he wore, and moving pictures of him eating soup."

"No, I guess not," replied Magee abstractedly.

"I reckon there was a lot in his record wasn't meant for the newspapers," continued Cargan reflectively. "And it didn't get there. Nap was lucky. He had it on the reformers there. They couldn't squash him with the power of the press."

Mr. Magee broke away from the mayor's rehashed history, and hurried to Miss Norton.

"You promised yesterday," he reminded her, "to show me the pictures of the admiral."

"So I did," she replied, rising quickly. "To think you have spent all this time in Baldpate Inn and not paid homage to its own particular cock of the walk."

She led him to a portrait hanging beside the desk.

"Behold," she said, "the admiral on a sunny day in July. Note the starchy grandeur of him, even with the thermometer up in the clouds. That's one of the things the rocking-chair fleet adores in him. Can you imagine the flurry at the approach of all that superiority? Theodore Roosevelt, William Faversham, and Richard Harding Davis all arriving together couldn't overshadow the admiral for a minute."

Mr. Magee gazed at the picture of a pompous little man, whose fierce mustache seemed anxious to make up for the lack of hair on his head.

"A bald hero at a summer resort," he commented, "it seems incredible."

"Oh, they think he lost his hair fighting for the flag," she laughed. "It's winter, and snowing, or I shouldn't dare lese-majeste. And—over here—is the admiral on the veranda, playing it's a quarter deck. And here the great portrait—Andrew Rutter with a profaning arm over the admiral's shoulder. The old ladies make their complaints to Mr. Rutter in softer tones after seeing that picture."

"And this?" asked Magee, moving farther from the group by the fire.

"A precious one—I wonder they leave it here in winter. This is the admiral as a young man—clipped from a magazine article. Even without the mustache, you see, he had a certain martial bearing."

"And now he's the ruler of the queen's navee," smiled Magee. He looked about. "Is it possible to see the room where the admiral plays his famous game?"

"Step softly," she answered. "In here. There stands the very table."

They went into the small card-room at the right of the entrance to the office, and Mr. Magee quietly closed the door behind them. The time had come. He felt his heart sink.

"Well?" said the girl, with an eagerness she could not conceal.

Mr. Magee groped for words. And found—his old friends of the mountain.

"I love you," he cried desperately. "You must believe I want to help you. It looks rather the other way now, I'll admit. I want you to have that money. I don't know who you are, nor what this all means, but I want you to have it. I went up-stairs determined to give it to you—"

"Really." The word was at least fifty degrees below the temperature of the card-room.

"Yes, really. I won't ask you to believe—but I'm telling the truth. I went to the place where I had fatuously hid the money—under a brick of my fireplace. It was gone."

"How terribly unfortunate."

"Yes, isn't it?" Mr. Magee rejoiced that she took so calm a view of it. "They searched the room, of course. And they found the money. They're on top now. But I'm going—"

He stopped. For he had seen her face. She—taking a calm view of it? No, indeed. Billy Magee saw that she was furiously, wildly angry. He remembered always having written it down that beautiful women were even more beautiful in anger. How, he wondered, had he fallen into that error?

"Please do not bore me," she said through her teeth, "with any further recital of what you 'are going' to do. You seem to have a fatal facility in that line. Your record of accomplishment is pathetically weak. And—oh, what a fool I've been! I believed. Even after last night, I believed."

No, she was not going to cry. Hers was no mood for tears. What said the librettist? "There is beauty in the roaring of the gale, and the tiger when a-lashing of his tail." Such was the beauty of a woman in anger. And nothing to get enthusiastic about, thought Mr. Magee.

"I know," he said helplessly, "you're terribly disappointed. And I don't blame you. But you will find out that you've done me an injustice. I'm going—"

"One thing," said she, smiling a smile that could have cut glass, "you are going to do. I know that you won't fail this time, because I shall personally see you through with it. You're going to stop making a fool of me."

"Tell me," pleaded Billy Magee. "Tell me who you are—what this is all about. Can't you see I'm working in the dark? You must—"

She threw open the card-room door.

"An English officer," she remarked loudly, stepping out into the other room, "taught the admiral the game. At least, so he said. It added so much romance to it in the eyes of the rocking-chair fleet. Can't you see—India—the hot sun—the Kipling local color—a silent, tanned, handsome man eternally playing solitaire on the porch of the barracks? Has the barracks a porch?"

Roused, humiliated, baffled, Mr. Magee felt his cheeks burn.

"We shall see what we shall see," he muttered.

"Why coin the inevitable into a bromide," she asked.

Mr. Magee joined the group by the fire. Never before in his life had he been so determined on anything as he was now that the package of money should return to his keeping. But how? How trace through this maze of humans the present holder of that precious bundle of collateral? He looked at Mr. Max, sneering his lemon-colored sneer at the mayor's side; at the mayor himself, nonchalant as the admiral being photographed; at Bland, author of the Arabella fiction, sprawling at ease before the fire; at the tawdry Mrs. Norton, and at Myra Thornhill, who had by her pleading the night before made him ridiculous. Who of these had the money now? Who but Cargan and Max, their faces serene, their eyes eagerly on the preparations for lunch, their plans for leaving Baldpate Inn no doubt already made?

And then Mr. Magee saw coming down the stairs another figure—one he had forgot—Professor Thaddeus Bolton, he of the mysterious dialogue by the annex door. On the professor's forehead was a surprising red scratch, and his eyes, no longer hidden by the double convex lenses, stood revealed a washed-out gray in the light of noon.

"A most unfortunate accident," explained the old man. "Most distressing. I have broken my glasses. I am almost blind without them."

"How'd it happen, Doc?" asked Mr. Cargan easily.

"I came into unexpected juxtaposition with an open door," returned Professor Bolton. "Stupid of me, but I'm always doing it. Really, the agility displayed by doors in getting in my path is surprising."

"You and Mr. Max can sympathize with each other," said Magee, "I thought for a moment your injuries might have been received in the same cause."

"Don't worry, Doc," Mr. Bland soothed him, "we'll all keep a weather eye out for reporters that want to connect you up with the peroxide blondes."

The professor turned his ineffectual gaze on the haberdasher, and there was a startlingly ironic smile on his face.

"I know, Mr. Bland," he said, "that my safety is your dearest wish."

The Hermit of Baldpate announced that lunch was ready, and with the others Mr. Magee took his place at the table. Food for thought was also his. The spectacles of Professor Thaddeus Bolton were broken. Somewhere in the scheme of things those smashed lenses must fit. But where?



CHAPTER XIII

THE EXQUISITE MR. HAYDEN

It was past three o'clock. The early twilight crept up the mountain, and the shadows began to lengthen in the great bare office of Baldpate Inn. In the red flicker of firelight Mr. Magee sat and pondered; the interval since luncheon had passed lazily; he was no nearer to guessing which of Baldpate Inn's winter guests hugged close the precious package. Exasperated, angry, he waited for he knew not what, restless all the while to act, but having not the glimmer of an inspiration as to what his course ought to be.

He heard the rustle of skirts on the stair landing, and looked up. Down the broad stairway, so well designed to serve as a show-window for the sartorial triumphs of Baldpate's gay summer people, came the tall handsome girl who had the night before set all his plans awry. In the swift-moving atmosphere of the inn she had hitherto been to Mr. Magee but a puppet of the shadows, a figure more fictitious than real. Now for the first time he looked upon her as a flesh-and-blood girl, noted the red in her olive cheeks, the fire in her dark eyes, and realized that her interest in that package of money might be something more than another queer quirk in the tangle of events.

She smiled a friendly smile at Magee, and took the chair he offered. One small slipper beat a discreet tattoo on the polished floor of Baldpate's office. Again she suggested to Billy Magee a house of wealth and warmth and luxury, a house where Arnold Bennett and the post-impressionists are often discussed, a house the head of which becomes purple and apoplectic at the mention of Colonel Roosevelt's name.

"Last night, Mr. Magee," she said, "I told you frankly why I had come to Baldpate Inn. You were good enough to say that you would help me if you could. The time has come when you can, I think."

"Yes?" answered Magee. His heart sank. What now?

"I must confess that I spied this morning," she went on. "It was rude of me, perhaps. But I think almost anything is excusable under the circumstances, don't you? I witnessed a scene in the hall above—Mr. Magee, I know who has the two hundred thousand dollars!"

"You know?" cried Magee. His heart gave a great bound. At last! And then—he stopped. "I'm afraid I must ask you not to tell me," he added sadly.

The girl looked at him in wonder. She was of a type common in Magee's world—delicate, finely-reared, sensitive. True, in her pride and haughtiness she suggested the snow-capped heights of the eternal hills. But at sight of those feminine heights Billy Magee had always been one to seize his alpenstock in a more determined grip, and climb. Witness his attentions to the supurb Helen Faulkner. He had a moment of faltering. Here was a girl who at least did not doubt him, who ascribed to him the virtues of a gentleman, who was glad to trust in him. Should he transfer his allegiance? No, he could hardly do that now.

"You ask me not to tell you," repeated the girl slowly.

"That demands an explanation," replied Billy Magee. "I want you to understand—to be certain that I would delight to help you if I could. But the fact is that before you came I gave my word to secure the package you speak of for—another woman. I can not break my promise to her."

"I see," she answered. Her tone was cool.

"I'm very sorry," Magee went on. "But as a matter of fact, I seem to be of very little service to any one. Just now I would give a great deal to have the information you were about to give me. But since I could not use it helping you, you will readily see that I must not listen. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too," replied the girl. "Thank you very much—for telling me. Now I must—go forward—alone." She smiled unhappily.

"I'm afraid you must," answered Billy Magee.

On the stairs appeared the slim figure of the other girl. Her great eyes were wistful, her face was pale. She came toward them through the red firelight. Mr. Magee saw what a fool he had been to waver in his allegiance even for a moment. For he loved her, wanted her, surely. The snow-capped heights are inspiring, but far more companionable is the brook that sparkles in the valley.

"It's rather dull, isn't it?" asked Miss Norton of the Thornhill girl. By the side of the taller woman she seemed slight, almost childish. "Have you seen the pictures of the admiral, Miss Thornhill? Looking at them is our one diversion."

"I do not care to see them, thank you," Myra Thornhill replied, moving toward the stairs. "He is a very dear friend of my father." She passed up and out of sight.

Miss Norton turned away from the fire, and Mr. Magee rose hastily to follow. He stood close behind her, gazing down at her golden hair shimmering in the dark.

"I've just been thinking," he said lightly, "what an absolutely ridiculous figure I must be in your eyes, buzzing round and round like a bee in a bottle, and getting nowhere at all. Listen—no one has left the inn. While they stay, there's hope. Am I not to have one more chance—a chance to prove to you how much I care?"

She turned, and even in the dusk he saw that her eyes were wet.

"Oh, I don't know, I don't know," she whispered. "I'm not angry any more. I'm just—at sea. I don't know what to think—what to do. Why try any longer? I think I'll go away—and give up."

"You mustn't do that," urged Magee. They came back into the firelight. "Miss Thornhill has just informed me that she knows who has the package!"

"Indeed," said the girl calmly, but her face had flushed.

"I didn't let her tell me, of course."

"Why not?" Oh, how maddening women could be!

"Why not?" Magee's tone was hurt. "Because I couldn't use her information in getting the money for you."

"You are still 'going to' get the money for me?"

Maddening certainly, as a rough-edged collar.

"Of—" Magee began, but caught himself. No, he would prate no more of 'going to'. "I'll not ask you to believe it," he said, "until I bring it to you and place it in your hand."

She turned her face slowly to his and lifted her blue eyes.

"I wonder," she said. "I wonder."

The firelight fell on her lips, her hair, her eyes, and Mr. Magee knew that his selfish bachelorhood was at an end. Hitherto, marriage had been to him the picture drawn by the pathetic exiled master. "There are no more pleasant by-paths down which you may wander, but the road lies long and straight and dusty to the grave." What if it were so? With the hand of a girl like this in his, what if the pleasant by-paths of his solitude did bear hereafter the "No Thoroughfare" sign? Long the road might be, and he would rejoice in its length; dusty perhaps, but her smile through the dust would make it all worth while. He stooped to her.

"Give me, please," he said, "the benefit of the doubt." It was a poor speech compared to what was in his heart, but Billy Magee was rapidly learning that most of the pretty speeches went with puppets who could not feel.

Bland and Max came in from a brisk walk on the veranda. The mayor of Reuton, who had been dozing near the desk, stirred.

"Great air up here," remarked Mr. Max, rubbing his hands before the fire. "Ought to be pumped down into the region of the white lights. It sure would stir things up."

"It would put out the lights at ten p. m.," answered Mr. Magee, "and inculcate other wholesome habits of living disastrous to the restaurant impresarios."

Miss Norton rose and ascended the stairs. Still the protesting Magee was at her heels. At the head of the stair she turned.

"You shall have your final chance," she said. "The mayor, Max and Bland are alone in the office. I don't approve of eavesdropping at Baldpate in the summer—it has spoiled a lot of perfectly adorable engagements. But in winter it's different. Whether you really want to help me or not I'm sure I don't know, but if you do, the conversation below now might prove of interest."

"I'm sure it would," Magee replied.

"Well, I have a scheme. Listen. Baldpate Inn is located in a temperance county. That doesn't mean that people don't drink here—it simple means that there's a lot of mystery and romance connected with the drinking. Sometimes those who follow the god of chance in the card-room late at night grow thirsty. Now it happens that there is a trap-door in the floor of the card-room, up which drinks are frequently passed from the cellar. Isn't that exciting? A hotel clerk who became human once in my presence told me all about it. If you went into the cellar and hunted about, you might find that door and climb up into the card-room."

"A bully idea," agreed Mr. Magee. "I'll hurry down there this minute. I'm more grateful than you can guess for this chance. And this time—but you'll see."

He found the back stairs, and descended. In the kitchen the hermit got in his path.

"Mr. Magee," he pleaded, "I consider that, in a way, I work for you here. I've got something important to tell you. Just a minute—"

"Sorry," answered Magee, "but I can't possibly stop now. In an hour I'll talk to you. Show me the cellar door, and don't mention where I've gone, there's a good fellow."

Mr. Peters protested that his need of talk was urgent, but to no avail. Magee hurried to the cellar, and with the aid of a box of matches found a ladder leading to a door cut in the floor above. He climbed through dust and cobwebs, unfastened the catch, and pushed cautiously upward. In another minute he was standing in the chill little card-room. Softly he opened the card-room door about half an inch, and put his ear to it.

The three men were grouped very close at hand, and he heard Mr. Bland speaking in low tones:

"I'm talking to you boys as a friend. The show is over. There ain't no use hanging round for the concert—there won't be none. Go home and get some clean collars and a square meal."

"If you think I'm going to be shook off by any fairy story like that," said the mayor of Reuton "you're a child with all a child's touching faith."

"All right," replied Mr. Bland, "I thought I'd pass you the tip, that's all. It ain't nothing to me what you do. But it's all over, and you've lost out. I'm sorry you have—but I take Hayden's orders."

"Damn Hayden!" snarled the mayor. "It was his idea to make a three-act play out of this thing. He's responsible for this silly trip to Baldpate. This audience we've been acting for—he let us in for them."

"I know," said Bland. "But you can't deny that Baldpate Inn looked like the ideal spot at first. Secluded, off the beaten path, you know, and all that."

"Yes," sneered the mayor, "as secluded as a Sunday-school the Sunday before Christmas."

"Well, who could have guessed it?" went on Mr. Bland. "As I say, I don't care what you do. I just passed you the tip. I've got that nice little package of the long green—I've got it where you'll never find it. Yes, sir, it's returned to the loving hands of little Joe Bland, that brought it here first. It ain't going to roam no more. So what's the use of your sticking around?"

"How did you get hold of it?" inquired Mr. Lou Max.

"I had my eye on this little professor person," explained Mr. Bland. "This morning when Magee went up the mountain I trailed the high-brow to Magee's room. When I busted in, unannounced by the butler, he was making his getaway. I don't like to talk about what followed. He's an old man, and I sure didn't mean to break his glasses, nor scratch his dome of thought. There's ideas in that dome go back to the time of Anthony J. Chaucer. But—he's always talking about that literature chair of his—why couldn't he stay at home and sit in it? Anyhow, I got the bundle all right, all right. I wonder what the little fossil wants with it."

"The Doc's glasses was broke," said Max, evidently to the mayor of Reuton.

"Um-m," came Cargan's voice. "Bland, how much do you make working for this nice kind gentleman, Mr. Hayden?"

"Oh, about two thousand a year, with pickings," replied Bland.

"Yes?" went on Mr. Cargan. "I ain't no Charles Dana Gibson with words. My talk's a little rough and sketchy, I guess. But here's the outline, plain as I can make it. Two thousand a year from Hayden. Twenty thousand in two seconds if you hand that package to me."

"No," objected Bland. "I've been honest—after a fashion. I can't quite stand for that. I'm working for Hayden."

"Don't be a fool," sneered Max.

"Of course," said the mayor, "I appreciate your scruples, having had a few in my day myself, though you'd never think so to read the Star. But look at it sensible. The money belongs to me. If you was to hand it over you'd be just doing plain justice. What right has Hayden on his side? I did what was agreed—do I get my pay? No. Who are you to defeat the ends of justice this way? That's how you ought to look at it. You give me what's my due—and you put twenty thousand in your pocket by an honest act. Hayden comes. He asks for the bundle. You point to the dynamited safe. You did your best."

"No," said Bland, but his tone was less firm. "I can't go back on Hayden. No—it wouldn't—"

"Twenty thousand," repeated Cargan. "Ten years' salary the way you're going ahead at present. A lot of money for a young man. If I was you I wouldn't hesitate a minute. Think. What's Hayden ever done for you? He'll throw you down some day, the way he's thrown me."

"I—I—don't know—" wavered Bland. Mr. Magee, in the card-room, knew that Hayden's emissary was tottering on the brink.

"You could set up in business," whined Mr. Max. "Why, if I'd had that much money at your age, I'd be a millionaire to-day."

"You get the package," suggested the mayor, "take twenty thousand out, and slip the rest to me. No questions asked. I guess there ain't nobody mixed up in this affair will go up on the housetops and shout about it when we get back to Reuton."

"Well,—" began Bland. He was lost. Suddenly the quiet of Baldpate Mountain was assailed by a loud pounding at the inn door, and a voice crying, "Bland. Let me in."

"There's Hayden now," cried Mr. Bland.

"It ain't too late," came the mayor's voice, "You can do it yet. It ain't too late."

"Do what?" cried Bland in a firm tone. "You can't bribe me, Cargan." He raised his voice. "Go round to the east door, Mr. Hayden." Then he added, to Cargan: "That's my answer. I'm going to let him in."

"Let him in," bellowed the mayor. "Let the hound in. I guess I've got something to say to Mr. Hayden."

There came to Magee's ears the sound of opening doors, and of returning footsteps.

"How do you do, Cargan," said a voice new to Baldpate.

"Cut the society howdydoes," replied the mayor hotly. "There's a little score to be settled between me and you, Hayden. I ain't quite wise to your orchid-in-the-buttonhole ways. I don't quite follow them. I ain't been bred in the club you hang around—they blackballed me when I tried to get in. You know that. I'm a rough rude man. I don't understand your system. When I give my word, I keep it. Has that gone out of style up on the avenue, where you live?"

"There are conditions—" began Hayden.

"The hell there are!" roared Cargan. "A man's word's his word, and he keeps it to me, or I know the reason why. You can't come down to the City Hall with any new deal like this. I was to have two hundred thousand. Why didn't I get it?"

"Because," replied Hayden smoothly, "the—er—little favor you were to grant me in return is to be made useless by the courts."

"Can I help that?" the mayor demanded. "Was there anything about that in the agreement? I did my work. I want my pay. I'll have it, Mister Hayden."

Hayden's voice was cool and even as he spoke to Bland.

"Got the money, Joe?"

"Yes," Bland answered.

"Where?"

"Well—we'd better wait, hadn't we?" Bland's, voice was shaky.

"No. We'll take it and get out," answered Hayden.

"I want to see you do it," cried Cargan. "If you think I've come up here on a pleasure trip, I got a chart and a pointer all ready for your next lesson. And let me put you wise—this nobby little idea of yours about Baldpate Inn is the worst ever. The place is as full of people as if the regular summer rates was being charged."

"The devil it is!" cried Hayden. His voice betrayed a startled annoyance.

"It hasn't worried me none," went on the mayor. "They can't touch me. I own the prosecutor, and you know it. But it ain't going to do you any good on the avenue if you're seen here with me. Is it, Mr. Hayden?"

"The more reason," replied Hayden, "for getting the money and leaving at once. I'm not afraid of you, Cargan. I'm armed."

"I ain't," sneered the mayor. "But no exquisite from your set with his little air-gun ever scared me. You try to get away from here with that bundle and you'll find yourself all tangled up in the worst scrap that ever happened."

"Where's the money, Joe?" asked Hayden.

"You won't wait—" Bland begged.

"Wait to get my own money—I guess not. Show me where it is."

"Remember," put in Cargan, "that money's mine. And don't have any pipe dreams about the law—the law ain't called into things of this sort as a rule. I guess you'd be the last to call it. You'll never get away from here with my money."

Mr. Magee opened the card-room door farther, and saw the figure of the stranger Hayden confronting the mayor. Mr. Cargan's title of exquisite best described him. The newcomer was tall, fair, fastidious in dress and manner. A revolver gleamed in his hand.

"Joe," he said firmly, "take me to that money at once."

"It's out here," replied Bland. He and Hayden disappeared through the dining-room door into the darkness. Cargan and Max followed close behind.

Hot with excitement, Mr. Magee slipped from his place of concealment. A battle fit for the gods was in the air. He must be in the midst of it—perhaps again in a three-cornered fight it would be the third party that would emerge victorious.

In the darkness of the dining-room he bumped into a limp clinging figure. It proved to be the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain.

"I got to talk to you, Mr. Magee," he whispered in a frightened tremolo. "I got to have a word with you this minute."

"Not now," cried Magee, pushing him aside. "Later."

The hermit wildly seized his arm.

"No, now," he said. "There's strange goings-on, here, Mr. Magee. I got something to tell you—about a package of money I found in the kitchen."

Mr. Magee stood very still. Beside him in the darkness he heard the hermit's excited breathing.



CHAPTER XIV

THE SIGN OF THE OPEN WINDOW

Undecided, Mr. Magee looked toward the kitchen door, from behind which came the sound of men's voices. Then he smiled, turned and led Mr. Peters back into the office. The Hermit of Baldpate fairly trembled with news.

"Since I broke in on you yesterday morning," he said in a low tone as he took a seat on the edge of a chair, "one thing has followed another so fast that I'm a little dazed. I can't just get the full meaning of it all."

"You have nothing on me there, Peters," Magee answered. "I can't either."

"Well," went on the hermit, "as I say, through all this downpour of people, including women, I've hung on to one idea. I'm working for you. You give me my wages. You're the boss. That's why I feel I ought to give what information I got to you."

"Yes, yes," Mr. Magee agreed impatiently. "Go ahead."

"Where you find women," Peters continued, "there you find things beyond understanding. History—"

"Get to the point."

"Well—yes. This afternoon I was looking round through the kitchen, sort of reconnoitering, you might say, and finding out what I have to work with, for just between us, when some of this bunch goes I'll easily be persuaded to come back and cook for you. I was hunting round in the big refrigerator with a candle, thinking maybe some little token of food had been left over from last summer's rush—something in a can that time can not wither nor custom stale, as the poet says—and away up on the top shelf, in the darkest corner, I found a little package."

"Quick, Peters," cried Magee, "where is that package now?"

"I'm coming to that," went on the hermit, not to be hurried. "What struck me first about the thing was it didn't have any dust on it. 'Aha,' I says, or words to that effect. I opened it. What do you think was in it?"

"I don't have to think—I know," said Magee. "Money. In the name of heaven, Peters, tell me where you've got the thing."

"Just a minute, Mr. Magee. Let me tell it my way. You're right. There was money in that package. Lots of it. Enough to found a university, or buy a woman's gowns for a year. I was examining it careful-like when a shadow came in the doorway. I looked up—"

"Who?" asked Magee breathlessly.

"That little blinky-eyed Professor Bolton was standing there, most owlish and interested. He came into the refrigerator. 'That package you have in your hand, Peters,' he says, 'belongs to me. I put it in cold storage so it would keep. I'll take it now.' Well, Mr. Magee, I'm a peaceful man. I could have battered that professor into a learned sort of jelly if I'd wanted to. But I'm a great admirer of Mr. Carnegie, on account of the library, and I go in for peace. I knew it wasn't exactly the thing, but—"

"You gave him the package?"

"That's hardly the way I would put it, Mr. Magee. I made no outcry or resistance when he took it. 'I'm just a cook,' I says, 'in this house. I ain't the trusted old family retainer that retains its fortunes like a safety deposit vault.' So I let go the bundle. It was weak of me, I know, but I sort of got the habit of giving up money, being married so many years."

"Peters," said Mr. Magee, "I'm sorry your grip was so insecure, but I'm mighty glad you came to me with this matter."

"He told me I wasn't to mention it to anybody," replied the hermit, "but as I say, I sort of look on it that we were here first, and if our guests get to chasing untold wealth up and down the place, we ought to let each other in on it."

"Correct," answered Magee. "You are a valuable man, Peters. I want you to know that I appreciate the way you have acted in this affair." Four shadowy figures tramped in through the dining-room door. "I should say," he continued, "that the menu you propose for dinner will prove most gratifying."

"What—oh—yes, sir," said Peters. "Is that all?"

"Quite," smiled Magee. "Unless—just a minute, this may concern you—on my word, there's another new face at Baldpate."

He stood up, and in the light of the fire met Hayden. Now he saw that the face of the latest comer was scheming and weak, and that under a small blond mustache a very cruel mouth sought to hide. The stranger gazed at Magee with an annoyance plainly marked.

"A friend of mine—Mr.—er—Downs, Mr. Magee," muttered Bland.

"Oh, come now," smiled Magee. "Let's tell our real names. I heard you greeting your friend a minute ago. How are you, Mr. Hayden?"

He held out his hand. Hayden looked him angrily in the eyes.

"Who the devil are you?" he asked.

"Do you mean," said Magee, "that you didn't catch the name. It's Magee—William Hallowell Magee. I hold a record hereabouts, Mr. Hayden. I spent nearly an hour at Baldpate Inn—alone. You see, I was the first of our amiable little party to arrive. Let me make you welcome. Are you staying to dinner? You must."

"I'm not," growled Hayden.

"Don't believe him, Mr. Magee," sneered the mayor, "he doesn't always say what he means. He's going to stay, all right."

"Yes, you'd better, Mr. Hayden," advised Bland.

"Huh—delighted, I'm sure," snapped Hayden. He strolled over to the wall, and in the light of the fire examined a picture nonchalantly.

"The pride of our inn," Mr. Magee, following, explained pleasantly, "the admiral. It is within these very walls in summer that he plays his famous game of solitaire."

Hayden wheeled quickly, and looked Magee in the eyes. A flush crossed his face, leaving it paler than before. He turned away without speaking.

"Peters," said Magee, "you heard what Mr. Hayden said. An extra plate at dinner, please. I must leave you for a moment, gentlemen." He saw that their eyes followed him eagerly—full of suspicion, menacing. "We shall all meet again, very shortly."

Hayden slipped quickly between Magee and the stairs. The latter faced him smilingly, reflecting as he did so that he could love this man but little.

"Who are you?" said Hayden again. "What is your business here?"

Magee laughed outright, and turned to the other men.

"How unfortunate," he said, "this gentleman does not know the manners and customs of Baldpate in winter. Those are questions, Mr. Hayden, that we are never impolite enough to ask of one another up here." He moved on toward the stairs, and reluctantly Hayden got out of his path. "I am very happy," he added, "that you are to be with us at dinner. It will not take you long to accustom yourself to our ways, I'm sure."

He ran up the stairs and passed through number seven out upon the balcony. Trudging through the snow, he soon sighted the room of Professor Bolton. And as he did so, a little shiver that was not due to atmospheric conditions ran down his spine. For one of the professor's windows stood wide open, bidding a welcome to the mountain storm. Peters had spoken the truth. Once more that tight little, right little package was within Mr. Magee's ken.

He stepped through the open window, and closed it after him. By the table sat Professor Bolton, wrapped in coats and blankets, reading by the light of a solitary candle. The book was held almost touching his nose—a reminder of the spectacles that were gone. As Magee entered the old man looked up, and a very obvious expression of fright crossed his face.

"Good evening, Professor," said Magee easily. "Don't you find it rather cool with the window open?"

"Mr. Magee," replied the much wrapped gentleman, "I am that rather disturbing progressive—a fresh air devotee. I feel that God's good air was meant to be breathed, not barricaded from our bodies."

"Perhaps," suggested Magee, "I should have left the window open?"

The old man regarded him narrowly.

"I have no wish to be inhospitable," he replied. "But—if you please—"

"Certainly," answered Magee. He threw open the window. The professor held up his book.

"I was passing the time before dinner with my pleasant old companion, Montaigne. Mr. Magee, have you ever read his essay on liars?"

"Never," said Magee. "But I do not blame you for brushing up on it at the present time, Professor. I have come to apologize. Yesterday morning I referred in a rather unpleasant way to a murder in the chemical laboratory at one of our universities. I said that the professor of chemistry was missing. This morning's paper, which I secured from Mr. Peters, informs me that he has been apprehended."

"You need not have troubled to tell me," said the old man. He smiled his bleak smile.

"I did you an injustice," went on Magee.

"Let us say no more of it," pleaded Professor Bolton.

Mr. Magee walked about the room. Warily the professor turned so that the other was at no instant at his back. He looked so helpless, so little, so ineffectual, that Mr. Magee abandoned his first plan of leaping upon him there in the silence. By more subtle means than this must his purpose be attained.

"I suppose," he said, "your love of fresh air accounts for the strolls on the balcony at all hours of the night?"

The old man merely blinked at him.

"I mustn't stop," Magee continued. "I just wanted to make my apology, that's all. It was unjust of me. Murder—that is hardly in your line. By the way, were you by any chance in my room this morning, Professor Bolton?"

Silence.

"Pardon me," remarked the professor at last, "if I do not answer. In this very essay on—on liars, Montaigne has expressed it so well. 'And how much is a false speech less sociable than silence.' I am a sociable man."

"Of course," smiled Magee. He stood looking down at the frail old scholar before him, and considered. Of what avail a scuffle there in that chill room? The package was no doubt safely hidden in a corner he could not quickly find. No he must wait, and watch.

"Good-by, until dinner," he said, "and may you find much in your wise companion's book to justify your conduct."

He went out through the open window, and in another moment stood just outside Miss Norton's room. She put a startled head out at his knock.

"Oh, it's you," she said. "I can't invite you in. You might learn terrible secrets of the dressing-table—mamma is bedecking herself for dinner. Has anything happened?"

"Throw something over your head, Juliet," smiled Magee, "the balcony is waiting for you."

She was at his side in a moment, and they walked briskly along the shadowy white floor.

"I know who has the money," said Magee softly. "Simply through a turn of luck, I know. I realize that my protestations of what I am going to do have bored you. But it looks very much to me as if that package would be in your hands very soon."

She did not reply.

"And when I have got it, and have given it to you—if I do," he continued, "what then?"

"Then," she answered, "I must go away—very quickly. And no one must know, or they will try to stop me."

"And after that?"

"The deluge," she laughed without mirth.

Up above them the great trees of Baldpate Mountain waved their black arms constantly as though sparring with the storm. At the foot of the buried roadway they could see the lamps of Upper Asquewan Falls; under those lamps prosaic citizens were hurrying home with the supper groceries through the night. And not one of those citizens was within miles of guessing that up on the balcony of Baldpate Inn a young man had seized a young woman's hand, and was saying wildly: "Beautiful girl—I love you."

Yet that was exactly what Billy Magee was doing. The girl had turned her face away.

"You've known me just two days," she said.

"If I can care this much in two days," he said, "think—but that's old, isn't it? Sometime soon I'm going to say to you: 'Whose girl are you?' and you're going to look up at me with a little heaven for two in your eyes and say: 'I'm Billy Magee's girl.' So before we go any further I must confess everything—I must tell you who this Billy Magee is—this man you're going to admit you belong to, my dear."

"You read the future glibly," she replied. "Are your prophecies true, I wonder?"

"Absolutely. Some time ago—on my soul, it was only yesterday—I asked if you had read a certain novel called The Lost Limousine, and you said you had, and that—it wasn't sincere. Well, I wrote it—"

"Oh!" cried the girl.

"Yes," said Magee, "and I've done others like it. Oh, yes, my muse has been a nouveau riche lady in a Worth gown, my ambition a big red motor-car. I've been a 'scramble a cent, mister' troubadour beckoning from the book-stalls. It was good fun writing those things, and it brought me more money than was good for me. I'm not ashamed of them; they were all right as a beginning in the game. But the other day—I thought an advertisement did the trick—I turned tired of that sort, and I decided to try the other kind—the real kind. I thought it was an advertisement that did it—but I see now it was because you were just a few days away."

"Don't tell me," whispered the girl, "that you came up here to—to—"

"Yes," smiled Magee, "I came up here to forget forever the world's giddy melodrama, the wild chase for money through deserted rooms, shots in the night, cupid in the middle distance. I came here to do—literature—if it's in me to do it."

The girl leaned limply against the side of Baldpate Inn.

"Oh, the irony of it!" she cried.

"I know," he said, "it's ridiculous. I think all this is meant just for—temptation. I shall be firm. I'll remember your parable of the blind girl—and the lamp that was not lighted. I'll do the real stuff. So that when you say—as you certainly must some day—'I'm Billy Magee's girl' you can say it proudly."

"I'm sure," she said softly, "that if I ever do say it—oh, no, I didn't say I would"—for he had seized her hands quickly—"if I ever do say it—it will certainly be proudly. But now—you don't even know my name—my right one. You don't know what I do, nor where I come from, nor what I want with this disgusting bundle of money. I sort of feel, you know—that this is in the air at Baldpate, even in the winter time. No sooner have the men come than they begin to talk of—love—to whatever girls they find here—on this very balcony—down there under the trees. And the girls listen, for—it's in the air, that's all. Then autumn comes, and everybody laughs, and forgets. May not our autumn come—when I go away?"

"Never," cried Magee. "This is no summer hotel affair to me. It's a real in winter and summer love, my dear—in spring and fall—and when you go away, I'm going too, about ten feet behind."

"Yes," she laughed, "they talk that way at Baldpate—the last weeks of summer. It's part of the game." They had come to the side of the hotel on which was the annex, and the girl stopped and pointed. "Look!" she whispered breathlessly.

In a window of the annex had appeared for a moment a flickering yellow light. But only for a moment.

"I know," said Mr. Magee. "There's somebody in there. But that isn't important in comparison. This is no summer affair, dear. Look to the thermometer for proof. I love you. And when you go away, I shall follow."

"And the book—"

"I have found better inspiration than Baldpate Inn."

They walked along for a time in silence.

"You forget," said the girl, "you only know who has the money."

"I will get it," he answered confidently. "Something tells me I will. Until I do, I am content to say no more."

"Good-by," said the girl. She stood in the window of her room, while a harsh voice called "That you, dearie?" from inside. "And I may add," she smiled, "that in my profession—a following is considered quite—desirable."

She disappeared, and Mr. Magee, after a few minutes in his room, descended again to the office. In the center of the room, Elijah Quimby and Hayden stood face to face.

"What is it, Quimby?" asked Magee.

"I just ran up to see how things were going," Quimby replied, "and I find him here."

"Our latest guest," smiled Magee.

"I was just reminding Mr. Hayden," Quimby said, his teeth set, an angry light in his eyes, "that the last time we met he ordered me from his office. I told you, Mr. Magee, that the Suburban Railway once promised to make use of my invention. Then Mr. Kendrick went away—and this man took charge. When I came around to the offices again—he laughed at me. When I came the second time, he called me a loafer and ordered me out."

He paused, and faced Hayden again.

"I've grown bitter, here on the mountain," he said, "as I've thought over what you and men like you said to me—as I've thought of what might have been—and what was—yes, I've grown pretty bitter. Time after time I've gone over in my mind that scene in your office. As I've sat here thinking you've come to mean to me all the crowd that made a fool of me. You've come to mean to me all the crowd that said 'The public be damned' in my ear. I haven't ever forgot—how you ordered me out of your office."