f this that he stopped as suddenly as if the
chasm had opened before him. No! It was the truth. If he were to
disappear forever in the darkness of the Christmas night there was none
to feel his loss. His wife would take care of Mamie; his son would
take care of himself, as he had before--relieved of even the scant
paternal authority he rebelled against. A more imaginative man than
Mulrady would have combated or have followed out this idea, and then
dismissed it; to the millionaire's matter-of-fact mind it was a
deduction that, having once presented itself to his perception, was
already a recognized fact. For the first time in his life he felt a
sudden instinct of something like aversion towards his family, a
feeling that even his son's dissipation and criminality had never
provoked. He hurried on angrily through the darkness.

It was very strange; the old house should be almost before him now,
across the hollow, yet there were no indications of light! It was not
until he actually reached the garden fence, and the black bulk of
shadow rose out against the sky, that he saw a faint ray of light from
one of the lean-to windows. He went to the front door and knocked.
After waiting in vain for a reply, he knocked again. The second knock
proving equally futile, he tried the door; it was unlocked, and,
pushing it open, he walked in. The narrow passage was quite dark, but
from his knowledge of the house he knew the "lean-to" was next to the
kitchen, and, passing through the dining-room into it, he opened the
door of the little room from which the light proceeded. It came from a
single candle on a small table, and beside it, with his eyes moodily
fixed on the dying embers of the fire, sat old Slinn. There was no
other light nor another human being in the whole house.

For the instant Mulrady, forgetting his own feelings in the mute
picture of the utter desolation of the helpless man, remained
speechless on the threshold. Then, recalling himself, he stepped
forward and laid his hand gayly on the bowed shoulders.

"Rouse up out o' this, old man! Come! this won't do. Look! I've run
over here in the rain, jist to have a sociable time with you all."

"I knew it," said the old man, without looking up; "I knew you'd come."

"You knew I'd come?" echoed Mulrady, with an uneasy return of the
strange feeling of awe with which he regarded Slinn's abstraction.

"Yes; you were alone--like myself--all alone!"

"Then, why