uld open and
let him in to persuade her to her own well-being. She looked at him a
moment, as he stood staring down at his feet where a ragged wisp of
yellowed brake came through the snow, looked as if he hurt her beyond
endurance, and yet she had to probe ill circumstance to its depths. Then
she spoke, but in her old voice of childlike gentleness toward him:

"I see. I really believe, Rookie, I do see."

He looked up at her in a palpable relief.

"That's a good girl," he said. Again she was half child to him. "You'll
take a hand, too, won't you?"

That was more than she had bargained for. She would believe in the
mysterious woman and leave him free to carry out any mission, however
sophistical or chivalrous, he would. But she had not expected to enter
the arena with him and defend the martyr thrown to the wild beast of
marital savagery. Raven felt her recoil.

"I can't do anything for her," he pursued, with a discouragement she
read. "Anything real, that is. I can give her the shelter of the hut,
but he'll find that out some day and go crashing in. I can't be there
always. Fact is, I can't be there at all."

"Yes," said Nan. "I see." There was in her voice a sweetness new to him.
"I'll do anything you say, Rookie, to make your mind easy. What do you
want me to do. Take her away from here?"

He considered a moment. Yes, that was really what he did want. She had
put the words into his mouth.

"But," said Nan practically, "what you've got to do now is to go down to
the house and be tried for your life. Your sister'll be there something
after two. And Dick. And the alienist."

Raven shrugged his shoulders as if he shook them free of a burden.

"I don't care anything about the alienist," he said. "Nor Dick. I do
care a lot about Amelia. She's an awful bore. But it can't be helped.
Come on down."

"You know," said Nan tentatively, as they took the road, "we could ask
Charlotte for a luncheon and go off over the mountain. You've got
snowshoes, haven't you?"

Raven shook his head.

"You can't foil Amelia," he said, "by running away from her. She'd camp
for the winter. Or she'd get on our trail and follow us. No, we've got
to see it through."

XVI

At the house they found Charlotte, in a silent alertness, making ready
for the guests whom Nan, before going up to the hut, had announced to
her. She was systematically refusing to be flurried, but Raven knew that
Amelia, with her rigid conventions and per