at I
want now--to get out and away! If you weren't so damned selfish,
you'd let me go. I hate a selfish woman!"

Then it was that Jim Dodge, pressing closer to the long window, heard
her say quite distinctly:

"Very well, father; we will go. Only I must go with you.... You are
not strong enough to go alone. We will go anywhere you like."

Andrew Bolton got nimbly out of his chair and stood glowering at her
across its back. Then he burst into a prolonged fit of laughter mixed
with coughing.

"Oh, so you'll go with father, will you?" he spluttered. "You
insist--eh?"

And, still coughing and laughing mirthlessly, he went out of the
room.

Left to herself, the girl sat down quietly enough before the fire.
Her serene face told no story of inward sorrow to the watchful eyes
of the man who loved her. Over long she had concealed her feelings,
even from herself. She seemed lost in revery, at once sad and
profound. Had she foreseen this dire disappointment of all her hopes,
he wondered.

He stole away at last, half ashamed of spying upon her lonely vigil,
yet withal curiously heartened. Wesley Elliot was right: Lydia Orr
needed a friend. He resolved that he would be that friend.

In the room overhead the light had leapt to full brilliancy. An
uncertain hand pulled the shade down crookedly. As the young man
turned for a last look at the house he perceived a shadow hurriedly
passing and repassing the lighted window. Then all at once the
shadow, curiously huddled, stooped and was gone. There was something
sinister in the sudden disappearance of that active shadow. Jim Dodge
watched the vacant window for a long minute; then with a muttered
exclamation walked on toward the village.

Chapter XXVI

In the barroom of the Brookville House the flaring kerosene lamp lit
up a group of men and half-grown boys, who had strayed in out of the
chill darkness to warm themselves around the great stove in the
middle of the floor. The wooden armchairs, which in summer made a
forum of the tavern's side piazza, had been brought in and ranged in
a wide semicircle about the stove, marking the formal opening of the
winter session. In the central chair sat the large figure of Judge
Fulsom, puffing clouds of smoke from a calabash pipe; his twinkling
eyes looking forth over his fat, creased cheeks roved impartially
about the circle of excited faces.

"I can understand all right about Andrew Bolton's turning up," one
man was saying. "