ll have to
be inexorable with her; and if I understand the yielding nature of
Phillips he doesn't like to be inexorable."

There came another sharp rattle of small pebbles at the window.

"Oh, confound him!" Briggs cried under his breath, and he shuffled out
of the room and crept noiselessly down the stairs to the front door.
The door creaked a little in opening, and he left it ajar. The current
of cold air that swept up to the companions he had left behind at his
room door brought them the noise of his rush down the gravel walk to
the gate and a noise there as of fugitive steps on the pavement
outside.

A weak female tread made itself heard in the hallway, followed by a
sharp voice from a door in the rear. "Was it the cat, Jenny?"

"No; the door just seems to have blown open. The catch is broken."

Swift, strong steps advanced with an effect of angry suspicion. "I
don't believe it blew open. More likely the cat clawed it open."

The steps which the voice preceded seemed to halt at the open door, as
if falling back from it, and Wallace and Blakeley, looking down, saw
by the dim flare of the hall lamp the face of Briggs confronting the
face of Mrs. Betterson from the outer darkness. They saw the sick
girl, whose pallor they could not see, supporting herself by the
stairs-post with one hand and pressing the other to her side.

"Oh! It's _you_, Mr. Briggs," the landlady said, with a note of
inculpation. "What made you leave the door open?"

The spectators could not see the swift change in Briggs's face from
terror to savage desperation, but they noted it in his voice.
"Yes--yes! It's me. I just--I was just-- No I won't, either! You'd
better know the truth. I was taking Phillips's bag out to him. He was
afraid to come in for it, because he didn't want to see you, the
confounded coward! He's left."

"Left? And he said he would stay till spring! Didn't he, Jenny?"

"I don't remember--" the girl weakly gasped, but her mother did not
heed her in her mounting wrath.

"A great preacher _he'll_ make. What'd he say he left for?"

"He didn't say. Will you let me up-stairs?"

"No, I won't, till you tell me. You know well enough, between you."

"Yes, I do know," Briggs answered, savagely. "He left because he was
tired of eating sole-leather for steak, and fire-salt pork, and tar
for molasses, and butter strong enough to make your nose curl, and
drinking burnt-rye slops for coffee and tea-grounds for tea. And so am
I,