He felt of Donaldson's arm. It was thin and flabby.

"Good Heavens—here, feel of mine!"

Donaldson grasped it with his weak fingers. It was beastly thick and firm.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"It is twenty minutes of ten. Is time so important to you?"

"I must get down-town before long."

"Rot! Why don't you drop your business here and now. Let things rip."

"Where 's the dog?" demanded Donaldson. The pup was out of sight. He felt strangely frightened. He got up and looked all about the room.

"Where 's he gone?" he demanded again.

Barstow grasped him by the shoulder.

"You must pull yourself together," he said seriously. "You 're heading for a worse place than the hospital."

"But where the devil has he gone? He was here a minute ago, was n't he?"

"Easy, easy," soothed Barstow. "Hold tight!"

"Find him, won't you, Barstow? Won't you find him?"

To quiet him Barstow whistled. The dog pounded his tail on the floor under the lounge.

"He 's under there," said Barstow.

"Get him out—get him out where I can see him, won't you?"

Barstow stooped.

"Come, Sandy, come," he called.

Donaldson leaped forward.

"What did you call him?" he demanded as Barstow staggered back.

"Have you gone mad?" shouted Barstow.

"What did you call him?" repeated Donaldson fiercely. "Tell me what you called him?"

"I called him Sandy. Control yourself, Don. If you let yourself go this way—it's the end."

"The end?" shouted Donaldson. "Man, it 's the beginning! It's just the beginning! Sandy—Sandy did n't die after all!"

"Oh, that's what's troubling you," returned Barstow with an air of relief. "Why did n't you tell me? You thought the dead had risen, eh? No, the stuff didn't work. The dog only had an attack of acute indigestion from overeating. But Gad, the coincidence was queer, when you stop to think of it. I 'd forgotten you left before he came to."

"Then," cried Donaldson excitedly, "you did n't have any poison after all!"

"No. I was so busy on more important work that my experiments with that stuff must all of them have been slipshod. But it did look for a minute as though Sandy here had proven it. But, Lord,—it was n't the poison that did for him—it was his week. His week was too much for him!"

"Give me your hand, Barstow. Give me your hand. I 'm limp as a rag."

"That's your nerves again. If you were normal, the mere fact that you thought you saw a spook dog would n't leave you in this shape. Come over here and sit down."

"Get me some water, old man—get me a long, long drink."

When Barstow handed him the glass, which must have held a pint, Donaldson trembled so that he could hold it to his lips only by using both hands, as those with palsy do. He swallowed it in great gulps. He felt as though he were burning up inside. The room began to swim around him, but with his hands kneading into the old sofa he warded off unconsciousness. He must not lose a single minute in blankness. He must get back to her—get back to her as soon as he could stand. She was suffering, too, though in another way. He must not let another burning minute scorch her.

"Perhaps you 'll take my advice now," Barstow was saying, "perhaps you were near enough the brink that time to listen to me. Tell me I may ring up Lindsey—tell me now that you 'll go with him."

"Go—away? Go—out to sea?" cried Donaldson.

"Yes. To-morrow morning."

"Why, Lord, man! Lord, man!" he panted, "I—would n't leave New York—I would n't go out there—for—for a million dollars."

"You damned ass!" growled Barstow.

"I—I would n't—go, if the royal yacht—of the King of England were waiting for me."

"Some one ought to have the authority to put you in a strait-jacket and carry you off. I tell you you 're headed for the madhouse, Don!"

Donaldson staggered to his feet. He put his trembling hands on Barstow's shoulders.

"No," he faltered, "no, I 'm headed for life, for life, Barstow! You hear me? I 'm headed for a paradise right here in New York."

Barstow felt baffled. The man was in as bad a way as he had ever seen a man, but he realized the uselessness of combatting that stubborn will. There was nothing to do but let him go on until he was struck down helpless. From the bottom of his heart be pitied him. This was the result of too much brooding alone.

"Peter," he said, "the loneliest place in this world is New York. Are you going to let it kill you?"

"No! It came near it, but I 've beaten it. I 'm bigger now than the dear old merciless city. It's mine—down to every dark alley. I 've got it at my feet, Barstow. It is n't going to kill me, it's going to make me grow. It is n't any longer my master—it's a good-natured, obedient servant. New York?" he laughed excitedly. "What is New York but a little strip of ground underneath the stars?"

"That would sound better if your eyes were clearer and your hand steadier."

"You 'd expect a man to be battered up a little, would n't you, after a hard fight? I 've fought the hardest thing in the world there is to fight—shadows, Barstow, shadows—with the King Shadow itself at their head."

Was the man raving? It sounded so, but Donaldson's eyes, in spite of their heaviness, were not so near those of madness as they had been a moment ago. The startled look had left his face. Every feature stood out brightly, as though lighted from within. His voice was fuller, and his language, though obscure, more like that of the old Donaldson. Barstow was mystified.

"Had n't you better lie down here again?" he suggested.

"I must go, now. What—what time is it, old man?"

"Five minutes past ten."

Donaldson took a deep breath. Time—how it stretched before him like a flower-strewn path without end. He heard the friendly tick-tock at his wrists. The minutes were so many jewel boxes, each containing the choice gift of so many breaths, so many chances to look into her eyes, so many chances to fulfil duties, so many quaffs of life.

"My watch has run down," he said, with curious seriousness. "I 'm going to wind it up again. I 'm going to wind it up again, Barstow."

He proceeded to do this as though engaged in some mystic rite.

"May I set it by your watch? I 'd like to set it by your watch, Barstow."

He adjusted the hands tenderly, again as though it were the act of a high priest.

"Now," he said, "it's going straight. I shall never let the old thing run down again. I think it hurts a watch, don't you, Barstow?"

"Yes," answered the latter, amazed at his emphasis upon such trivialities.

"Now," he said, "I must hurry. Where's my hat? Oh, there it is. And Sandy—where's Sandy?"

The dog crawled out at once at the sound of his name, and he stooped to pet him a moment.

"I don't suppose you 'd sell Sandy, would you, Barstow?"

"I 'll give him to you, if you 'll take him off. I have n't a fit place to keep him."

"May I take him now? May I take him with me?"

"Yes—if you'll come back to me to-morrow and report how you are."

"I 'll do it. I 'll be here to-morrow."

He cuddled the dog into his arm and held out his hand.

"Don't worry about me, old man. Just a little rattled that's all. But fit as a fiddle; strong as a moose, even if I don't look it as you do!"

Barstow took his hand, and when Donaldson left, stood at the head of the stairs anxiously watching him make his way to the street, hugging the dog tightly to his side.



CHAPTER XXVII

The End of the Beginning

When Donaldson appeared at the door of the Arsdale house he was confronted by Ben whose eyes were afire as though he had been drinking. Before he could speak a word the latter squared off before him aggressively.

"What the devil have you done to my sister?" he demanded.

Donaldson drew back, frightened by the question.

"What do you mean?" he demanded, the dog dropping from his arms to the floor.

"She 's in bed, and half out of her mind," returned the other fiercely. "She said you 'd gone! Donaldson, if you 've hurt her—"

The boy's fists were clenched as though he were about to strike. Donaldson stood with his arms hanging limply by his side. He felt Arsdale's right to strike if he wished.

"I have n't gone," he answered.

"I don't know what has happened," Arsdale ran on heatedly, "but I want to tell you this—that as much as you 've done for me, I won't stand for your hurting her."

"Let me see her," demanded Donaldson, coming to himself.

"She won't see any one! She 's locked up in her room. She may be dead. If she is, you 've killed her!"

Arsdale half choked upon the words. It was with difficulty that he restrained himself. He was blind to everything, save that in some way this man was responsible for the girl's suffering.

"Perhaps she 'll see me. Where is she?"

Donaldson without waiting for an answer pushed past Arsdale and the latter allowed it, but followed at his heels. Donaldson knew where she was without being told. She was in the big front room where the balcony led outdoors. He went up the stairs heavily, for he knew that more depended on the next half hour than had anything so far in all this harrowing week. Though there was plenty of light he groped his way close to the wall like a blind man. At the closed door he paused to catch his breath. In the meanwhile the boy, half frantic, pounded on the panels, shouting over his shoulder,

"She won't let us in, I tell you! She won't let us in! She may be dead!"

At this, Donaldson forced Arsdale back. He put his mouth close to the insensate wood and called her name.

"Elaine."

There was no answer.

He knocked lightly and called again. Again the silence, the boy stumbling up against him with an inarticulate cry. The nurse joined them, and the three stood there in shivering terror. Donaldson felt panic clutching at his own heart. Before throwing his weight against the door, he tried once more.

"Elaine," he cried, "it is I—Donaldson."

There was the sound of movement within, and then came the stricken plea,

"Go away. Please go away."

Arsdale answered,

"Let me in, Elaine. Nothing shall hurt you. I'll—"

Donaldson turned upon him and the nurse.

"Go down-stairs," he commanded.

His voice made them both shudder back.

"Go down-stairs," he repeated. "Do you hear! Leave her to me!"

Arsdale started a protest, but the nurse, in fright, took his arm and half dragged him towards the stairs. Donaldson followed threateningly. His face was terrible. He stood at the head of the stairs until they reached the hall below. Then he returned to the door.

"Elaine," he said, "I have come back. Do you hear me, Elaine? I have come back."

He heard within the sound as of muffled sobbing. He himself was breathing as though a great weight were on his chest.

"Elaine," he cried, "won't you open the door to me?"

The sobbing was broken by a tremulous voice.

"Is that you, Peter Donaldson?"

"Yes, yes!"

"Then go away and leave me, Peter Donaldson."

"Elaine, can you hear me clearly?"

There was the pause of a moment, and than the broken voice.

"Go away."

"No," he answered steadily, "I can't. I can't go away again until I see you. You must tell me face to face to go. I 've come back to you."

She did not answer.

"Elaine," he cried, "open the door to me. Let me see you."

"I don't want to see you."

He waited a moment. Then he said more soberly,

"Elaine, I can't go away. I must stay right here until I see you. I sha'n't move from here until my soul goes. Whether you hear me or not, you will know that I am right here by the door. At the end of one hour, at the end of two hours, at the end of a day, I shall still be here. If they try to drag me away, they 'll have to fight—they 'll have to fight hard."

There was no answer. He leaned back against the wall. Below, he heard a whispered conversation between Arsdale and the nurse; within, he heard nothing. So five minutes passed, and to Donaldson the world was chaos. He felt as though he were locked up in a tomb. There was the same feeling of dead weight upon the shoulders; the same sensation of stifling. Then he heard her voice,

"Are you still there, Peter Donaldson?"

"Yes," he answered.

"Won't you please go away?"

"I shall not go away until I have seen you."

Then another long suspense began, but it was shorter than the first.

"If I let you come in for a minute, will you go then?"

"Yes," he answered, "I will go then."

It seemed an eternity before he heard the key turn in the lock and saw the door swing open a little. He stepped in. She had taken a position in a far corner. She had drawn the Japanese shawl tightly about her, and was standing very erect, her white face like chiseled marble. He started towards her, but she checked him.

"Do not come any nearer," she commanded.

He steadied himself.

"I told you," he began abruptly, "that I was going because I must. That was true; I went thinking I was to meet Death."

She took a step towards him.

"You were ill? You are ill now?"

"No."

He paused. Now that the time had come when he could tell her all, it was a harder thing to do than he had thought. If she withdrew from him now—what would she do after she had learned? Yet he must do this to be a free man, to be even a free spirit. There must be no more shadows between them, not even shadows of the past.

"I told you," he said, "of my life up to the time I came to New York, of the daily grind it was to get that far. That was only the beginning—after that came the real struggle. It was easy to fight with the enemy in front—with something for your fists to strike against. But then came the waiting years. I was too blind to see all the work that lay around me. I was too selfish to see what I might have fought for. I saw nothing except the wasting months. I lost my grip. I played the coward."

He took a quick, sharp breath at the word. It was like plunging a knife into his own heart to stand before her and say that.

"One day in the laboratory," he struggled on, "Barstow told me of a poison which would not kill until the end of seven days. Because I was not—the best kind of fighter—I—stole it and swallowed it. That was a week ago. I am here now only because the poison did n't work."

"You—you tried to kill yourself?" she cried in amazement.

"Yes," he answered unflinchingly, "I tried to quit. There were many things I wanted—cheap, trivial things, and at the time I did n't see my course clear to getting them in any other way. The other things—the things worth while were around me all the time, but I could n't see them."

He paused. She drew away from him.

"So you see I did not do bravely. I wanted you to know this from the first, but there didn't seem to be any way. I did n't want to stand before you as a liar—as a hypocrite, and yet I did n't want to balk myself in the little good I found myself able to do. That silence was part of the penalty. I left you yesterday without telling, for the same reason. That and one other: because I did n't want you to think me a coward when death might cut off all opportunity for ever proving otherwise."

Again he paused, hoping against a dead hope. But she stood there, cringing away from him, her frightened lips dumb.

"That is all," he concluded. "Now I will go. But don't you see that I had to intrude long enough to tell you this? I stand absolutely honest before you. There isn't a lie in me. Now I am going to work."

He made an odd looking picture as he stood there. Haggard, hot-eyed, with a touch of color above his unshaven cheeks, he was like a victorious general at the end of a hard week's campaign.

He turned away from her and went out of the room. At the foot of the stairs he passed in silence Arsdale and the nurse. He turned back.

"Sandy! Sandy! Where are you?"

The dog came scrambling over the smooth floor with a joyous yelp. He picked him up and passing out the door went down the street. The few remaining dollars he had left burned in his pocket. He tossed them into the first sewer. He was now free—free to begin clean handed.

A little farther along he came to a gang of men at work upon the excavation for a new house. He needed money for food and a night's lodging. He went to the foreman.

"Want an extra hand?"

"Wot th' devil ye 're givin' us?"

"I 'm in earnest. I have n't a cent. I need work. Try me."

The burly foreman looked him over with a grin. Then as though he saw a good joke in it, he gave him a shovel and sent him into the cellar.

Donaldson removed his coat and rolling up his sleeves took his place beside the others. Sandy found a comfortable nest in the discarded garment and settled down contentedly.



CHAPTER XXVIII

The Seventh Noon

When Arsdale with the nurse at his heels rushed up-stairs, he found his sister before the mirror combing her hair. There was nothing hysterical about her, but her white calmness in itself was ominous.

"What is it, Elaine?" he panted, "has Donaldson gone mad?"

"No," she answered, "I should say that he is quite sane now."

"But what the deuce was the trouble with him? He looked as though he had lost his senses."

"Perhaps he has just found them."

The nurse interrupted him, in an aside,

"I would n't agitate her further." To the girl, she said, "Don't you think you had better lie down for a little, Miss Arsdale?"

"Please don't worry about me," she replied calmly, "I am going to change my dress and then I shall come down-stairs. I wish you would go to Marie—both of you. It is she who needs attention."

"But—" broke in Arsdale.

"There's a good boy. Do what you can to make her comfortable. I will join you in a few minutes."

Uncomprehending, Arsdale reluctantly led the way out. She closed the door behind them and turned to her mirror again.

"Well," demanded her reflection, "what are you going to do now?"

"Do? I shall go on as I have always done."

"Shall you?"

"Why not? There is Ben. Perhaps we shall go out into the country to live—perhaps we shall travel."

"Shall you?"

"That is certainly the sensible thing to do."

"Shall you?"

She smoothed back the hair from her throbbing temples.

"He looked very much in need of help," suggested the mirror.

"Who?"

"Peter Donaldson."

"Oh," gasped Elaine, "why did he do it? Why did he do it?"

The mirror recognized the question as one which every woman has asked at least once in her lifetime. But somehow this did not swerve her from her insistence.

"You must judge him from what you yourself have seen of him," the mirror harped back to Donaldson's own words.

"He acted bravely before me—before Ben. He did do bravely," cried the girl.

"And yet below these acts he had a craven heart?" hinted she of the mirror.

"No. No. It isn't possible! It isn't possible!"

"But he admitted the dreadful thing he tried to do."

"That was the folly of a moment. He has grown through it. He asked no mercy—asked no pardon. Did n't you see the expression upon his haggard face as he left the room?"

"Were you looking?" queried she of the mirror in surprise. "Your eyes were away from him."

"But one couldn't help but see that!"

The woman in the mirror found herself suddenly put upon the defensive.

"Where has he gone?" cried the girl. "What is he going to do now?"

"Will he do bravely whatever lies before him?"

"Yes. He will! He will!"

"How do you know?"

"I know. That is enough."

"Then why do you not call him back?"

The girl's cheeks grew scarlet.

"The shame of what I told him yesterday!"

"Was it not a bit brave of him to turn away from you?"

"He should have explained to me at that time why he was going. He needed me then."

"Do you not suppose that he knew it? Do you not suppose that it took the strength of a dozen men to go alone to what he thought was waiting for him?"

"I know nothing."

"And yet you saw his eyes as he stood before you then? And you saw his eyes as he left you five minutes ago?"

"I won't see. I can't risk—again!"

"Yet you love him?"

Once again the flaming scarlet in her cheeks. Her lips trembled. She turned away from the mirror.

"I said nothing of love," she insisted.

"Yet you love him?"

"Why did he do it?" she moaned.

"Yet you love him?"

"He did so bravely—he spoke so bravely, yet—"

"He learned. If, of all the world of men, you were to choose one to stand by your side when hardest pressed, whom would you choose?"

"I would choose him," answered the girl without hesitation.

"Why?"

"Because—"

"After all, is n't that enough? You would trust him to fight an eternity as he has fought for you these few days. Twice he staked his life for you—once his good name."

"But he thought he was soon to die."

"All the more precious the time that was left."

Her eyes brightened.

"Yes. Yes. I had not thought of that."

"Yet he did this and further risked what was left to save an unknown messenger boy."

"Oh, he did well!"

"Then he came to you like a man and told what you might never have discovered, just because he wished to stand clean before you."

"Yes," she breathed.

"Why did he do that?" demanded her reflection.

"I—I don't know."

"Why did he do that?"

"Because—"

"After all, isn't that enough?"

"But he said nothing. If only he had turned back!"

"What right had he to say the thing you wish? If he had been less a man he would have turned back."

"Where has he gone? What is he going to do?"

"Why don't you find out?"

"It would be unmaidenly."

"Yes, and very womanly. Do you owe him nothing?"

"I owe him everything."

"Then—"

"I must send Ben to find him. I must—oh, but I need n't do anything more?"

"No. Nothing more."

Her heart pounded in her throat in her eagerness to finish her toilet. Her fingers were so light that she could scarcely hold her comb. She hurried into a fresh gown and then down-stairs where she found Ben anxiously pacing the library. He appeared greatly agitated—anchorless.

"Ben," she began, "I had no right to allow Peter Donaldson to go away as I did."

"Little sister," he demanded, "was he unkind to you?"

"No. No," she broke in eagerly, "he was most generous with me. But for the moment I could n't see it. It was my fault that he went."

"But what was the cause of it?" he insisted, puzzled and dazed by the whole episode.

"It was nothing that counts now. I want you to promise me, Ben, that you will never refer to it, that you will never permit him to tell you of it."

His face cleared.

"Just a little tiff? But he took it hard. I never saw a man so worked up over anything."

"It belongs to the past," she hurried on, eager to allow it to pass as he interpreted it. "It would be cruel to him to bring it up again. Will you promise me, Ben?"

"I will promise. But I 'm afraid you overdid it. It is going to be hard to straighten him out."

"No. It is all straightened out now. All that remains for you to do is to find him and say that I—that I wish him to come back for lunch."

"Is it that simple?"

He smiled, his easy-going nature glad to seize upon anything that promised relief from such a jumble as this.

"You must say nothing more than that," she put in, frightened at the sound of her own words. Supposing that he would not come—supposing that even now she had presumed too far?

"You will tell him just that?"

"Yes," he agreed, "and this morning I would have thought that it was enough."

"It is enough now—whatever happens," she said hastily.

"I must hurry back to Marie," she concluded breathlessly. "You must not delay. It may be that he is planning to leave town. If so, you must catch him before he starts."

He placed his arm tenderly about her slight waist and led her to the foot of the stairs.

"You will let me know as soon as you come in?" she pleaded.

"Yes, and don't worry while I 'm gone."

Arsdale did not take a cab. He needed a walk to clear his head. The air was balmy with the fragrance of growing things and he was sensitive to its influence as he had never been in his life. As he strode along he felt twice his normal size. And yet what a puppet he was as compared to this Donaldson who had been willing to take upon his shoulders the ghastly burden which had been his own. He himself might bear it to-day, but yesterday it would have crushed him. He had not realized how low he had sunk until he learned that it was considered a possibility that he might have committed such crimes as those. If at first the suspicion had roused his wrath, the sober truth that Jacques under the same influence was actually guilty had been enough to disarm him. The past was like a nightmare, and this Donaldson was the man who had found his hand in the dark and roused him. He quickened his pace. A small black dog nosing about the fresh dirt thrown from an excavation to his left attracted his attention to a new house which was going up. He glanced at the men at work and then stood still in his tracks. Down there, in his shirt sleeves, bent over a shovel was Peter Donaldson.

It was impossible to believe, but he stared at the illusion with his hands getting cold. Then he turned back to the dog. It was the same pup Donaldson had brought into the house with him.

He riveted his eyes once more upon the figure standing out among his fellow workers like a uniformed general in a rabble. He strode to the side of the foreman of the gang who stood near.

"Who is that man down there?" he demanded.

"Dunno," the foreman answered briefly, "he asked fer work this mornin' and I give him a job."

"I 'm going to speak to him."

"Fire erway."

Arsdale clambered into the hole and reached Donaldson's side before the latter glanced up. When he did raise his head, it was with an easy, unembarrassed nod of recognition.

"Good Lord," gasped Arsdale, "it is you!"

"Yes."

Donaldson wiped his wet brow. He was not in particularly good training for such heavy work.

"But what the deuce—"

"I needed money for a night's lodging and took the first job that offered," he explained.

There was nothing melodramatic in his speech or attitude. He was not posing. He spoke of his necessity in the matter-of-fact way in which he had accepted it. It was necessary to earn the sheer essentials of life, in order to get a footing—to get sufficient capital to open up his office again. He would not have borrowed if he could, and a penniless lawyer in New York is in as bad a position as a penniless tramp. Not only was he glad of this opportunity to earn a couple of dollars, but he found pleasure, in spite of the physical strain, in this most elemental of employments. There was something in the act of forcing his shovel into the earth that brought him comfort in the thought that he was beginning in the cleanest of all clean ways. He was earning his first dollar like a pioneer. He was earning it by the literal sweat of his brow.

He turned back from Arsdale's astonished expression to his task.

"See here, Donaldson," protested the latter excitedly, "this is absurd! You must quit this. I 've money enough—"

"And I have n't," interrupted Donaldson heaving a shovel full of moist dirt into the waiting dump cart.

Even Arsdale was checked by the expression he caught in Donaldson's eyes. He ventured nothing further, but, bewildered, stood there, dumb a moment, before he remembered his message.

"I came out to find you," he managed to speak. "Elaine wants you to come back to lunch."

"What?"

Donaldson paused in his work and searched Arsdale's face.

"What did you say?" he demanded slowly.

"Elaine wants you to come back for lunch. She sent me to find you."

Arsdale saw Donaldson's lungs expand. He saw every vein in his face throb with new life. He saw him grow before his eyes to the capacity of two men. He saw him step forth from this aching begrimed shell into a new physique as vibrant with fresh strength as a young mountaineer. It was as startling a metamorphosis as though the man had been touched with a magician's wand.

"Thank you," answered Donaldson on a deep intake of breath. "I shall be glad to come."

"Drop your shovel then and come along now."

"No," he replied, as he dug his spade deep into the soil, "I can't quit my job. The whistle blows at noon."

At noon! At the seventh noon, the whistle was to blow! He tossed the weight of two ordinary shovelfuls of gravel into the cart as lightly as a child tosses a bean bag.



Perceiving the uselessness of further argument Arsdale climbed out to the bank, and, sitting on a big boulder, watched Donaldson with dazed fascination. The foreman passed him once.

"May be cracked," he remarked, "but I 'd' take a hundred men, the likes of him."

"You could n't find them on two continents," answered Arsdale.

The dog made overtures of friendship and he took him on his knee.

Donaldson never glanced up. With the precision of a machine he bent over his shovel, lifted, and threw without pause. The men near him looked askance at such unceasing labor.

In time, the foreman blew a shrill note on a whistle and as though he had applied a brake connected with every man, the shovels dropped and the motley gang scrambled for their dinner pails. Donaldson for the first time then lifted his face to Arsdale. The seventh noon had come, and never had a midday been ushered in to such a sweet note as the foreman had blown on his penny whistle.

Donaldson, picking up his coat, made his way to the side of Arsdale, who had risen to meet him with Sandy barking at his heels.

"I have only an hour," apologized Donaldson, "I 'm afraid I 'm hardly in a condition to go into the house."

"You are n't coming back here?"

"Yes."

Once again Arsdale found his protest choked at his lips. What was the use of talking to a man in such a stubborn mood as this? He led the way to the house.

In the hall, he shouted up the stairs,

"Elaine, Peter Donaldson is here!"

The girl stepped from the library clutching the silken curtains. She hesitated a moment at sight of him and then faltering forward, offered her hand.

"I 'm glad you came back," she said.

His fingers closed over her own with a decisiveness that made her catch her breath. As the woman in the mirror had divined, there was nothing more left for her to do.

"But the old chump is going again in an hour," choked Arsdale, "he 's taken a job shovelling dirt."

She met Donaldson's eyes. For a moment they questioned him. Then her own eyes grew moist and she smiled. The joy of it all was too much for her. She stooped and patted Sandy who was clawing her skirts for recognition.

"Oh, little dog," she whispered in his silken ear, "I am glad you came back. Glad—glad—glad!"



THE END