n.

"I know," interrupted the man, "but you won't let me talk seriously, so
I joke. But some day----"

"Oh, look!" cried the girl. "There's Fred."

She ran from him down the road. The young man followed her slowly, his
fists deep in the pockets of the great-coat, and kicking at the
unoffending leaves.

The chauffeur was peering through a double iron gate hung between
square brick posts. The lower hinge of one gate was broken, and that
gate lurched forward leaving an opening. By the light of the electric
torch they could see the beginning of a driveway, rough and weed-grown,
lined with trees of great age and bulk, and an unkempt lawn, strewn
with bushes, and beyond, in an open place bare of trees and illuminated
faintly by the stars, the shadow of a house, black, silent, and
forbidding.

"That's it," whispered the chauffeur. "I was here before. The well is
over there."

The young man gave a gasp of astonishment.

"Why," he protested, "this is the Carey place! I should say we WERE
lost. We must have left the road an hour ago. There's not another
house within miles." But he made no movement to enter. "Of all
places!" he muttered.

"Well, then," urged the girl briskly, "if there's no other house, let's
tap Mr. Carey's well and get on."

"Do you know who he is?" asked the man.

The girl laughed. "You don't need a letter of introduction to take a
bucket of water, do you?" she said.

"It's Philip Carey's house. He lives here." He spoke in a whisper,
and insistently, as though the information must carry some special
significance. But the girl showed no sign of enlightenment. "You
remember the Carey boys?" he urged. "They left Harvard the year I
entered. They HAD to leave. They were quite mad. All the Careys have
been mad. The boys were queer even then, and awfully rich. Henry ran
away with a girl from a shoe factory in Brockton and lives in Paris,
and Philip was sent here."

"Sent here?" repeated the girl. Unconsciously her voice also had sunk
to a whisper.

"He has a doctor and a nurse and keepers, and they live here all the
year round. When Fred said there were people hereabouts, I thought we
might strike them for something to eat, or even to put us up for the
night, but, Philip Carey! I shouldn't fancy----"

"I should think not!" exclaimed the girl.

For, a minute the three stood silent, peering through the iron bars.

"And the worst of it is," went on the young man irritably,