xit that night--he knew that he was
resigning his chair--but the thing was very cheap at the price.

[Illustration: "WHAT YOU NEED, GENTLEMEN, IS A TRIFLE WIDER READIN'--JUST
A TRIFLE! FOR YOU AIN'T BEIN' WELL POSTED ON FACTS!"]

"An' I reckon, too," he went on deliberately, and there was a
wicked fleer of sarcasm tinging the words, "I reckon I'll hev to
kinda apologize to you gentlemen for interruptin' your evenin's
entertainment, as you might say. I'm sorry I ain't able to remain,
for it's interestin'. I don't know's I've ever heard anything that
was jest as excitin' an' thrillin', but I've got something more
important needin' my attention this evenin'--meanin' that I ain't got
nothin' in particular that's a-callin' me! But it's no more'n my
plain duty for me to tell you this: You'd ought to follow the
papers a mite closer from now on. It's illuminatin'--it's broadenin'!
What you need, gentlemen, is a trifle wider readin'--jest a
trifle--jest a trifle! For you ain't bein' well posted on facts!"

Nobody moved. Nobody was capable of stirring even. Old Jerry bowed to
them from the doorway--he bowed till the water trickled in a stream
from the brim of his battered hat.

And this time, as he passed out, he closed the door very gently behind
him.

CHAPTER XI

It would have been hard for her to have explained just why it was so,
but Dryad Anderson had been sitting there in the unlighted front room
of the little once-white cottage before Judge Maynard's boxlike place
on the hill, watching hour after hour for that light to blink out at
her from the dark window of Denny Bolton's house on the opposite
slope. Ever since it had grown dark enough for that signal to be seen,
which had called across to her so many nights, she had been waiting
before the table in front of the window--waiting even while she told
herself that it could not appear. It was not Saturday night; there was
no real reason why she should be watching, unless--unless it was hope
that held her there.

Only in the last few hours since twilight had she admitted to herself
the possibility that such a hope lurked behind her vigil. Before then,
when the thought had first come to her that Denny might cry out to her
through the night, with that half-shuttered light, she had stifled it
with a savageness that left her shaking, panting and dizzy from its
bewildering intensity.

Time after time she told herself that it would go unheeded by her, no
matter ho