meant to be kind. Cordelia had
had all sorts of schooling and so had he. I think by denying the
youngsters books and too much knowledge, he thought to clip their wings
at the start and keep them contented. In tune with the farm, I mean,
and willing to stay. He'd seen enough of ruinous discontent when his
sister and himself went out in the world and tried their wings. Just a
fancy. I may be wrong. Well, Mr. O'Neill, I'm sorry. There's no
mystery and no money--"

"No," said Kenny dully, "no mystery and no money." He moved toward the
door with a curious trance-like feeling that this was still a part of
his dream.

"Just a commonplace story of self," said the doctor, following him to
the door, "with two ragged little kids the victims. Myself I think
it's just as well, Mr. O'Neill, to say as little as possible about
things of this sort. Tales up here grow. And fire that isn't fed goes
out. It's bound to. I never had the heart myself to deny the old
man's miser yarn. When I do talk, I try to say as little as possible
and keep my two feet solidly on the ground."

He watched Kenny down the steps and into the buggy.

"Humph!" said the little doctor. "Thought he had his fingers on a
regular swap-dollinger of a mystery, didn't he? To my thinking, the
only mystery in the farmhouse is himself!"

And Kenny, climbing into the buggy in hot rebellion, felt that he had
come decked out gorgeously in rainbow balloons. And the doctor,
practical and unromantic, had pushed a weary finger through them, one
by one, watching them collapse with his bored and kindly smile of
understanding. Life after all, reflected Kenny irritably, was a matter
of adjectives and any man was at the mercy of his biographer. He
himself could have told that story of Adam and Cordelia Craig until no
man could have called it commonplace and unromantic.

CHAPTER XXVI

AN INSPIRATION

Afterward Kenny thought that Nellie must have ambled into the doctor's
barnyard and turned herself, for he had no memory of guiding her. A
paralyzed conviction of another anti-climax had gripped him. He
remembered turning into the road with a haunting sense of eyes upon
him--Adam's eyes, piercing and bright with malevolent amusement. The
chart! The hints! The will! The cunning of him! What would he tell
Hughie and Hannah and Hetty? What would he tell Joan? What was there
to tell save that he had put two and two together and made five, a
romantic