to have that thing looked after. Here, get to bed and I'll
have a look at it when you're undressed."

He came into Roderick's berth later and with rough kindness handled the
swollen, aching limb. "I always told you something would come of
this," he grumbled. "And like everybody, you won't listen till it's
too late. There's some serious trouble there, Rod, or I'm very badly
mistaken. Now, look here, you promise me on your word and honour
you'll go straight to a doctor when you get to Montreal--to Doctor
Nicholls. Here, I'll give you his address. Now, will you promise to
go to-morrow morning, or must I stop off and miss my train to Halifax
to see you do it?"

Roderick promised and lay down in his berth, but not to sleep. The
pain in his arm was severe enough to keep him awake, but it was no
worse than his heartache. It was a tender heart, not yet calloused by
constant pursuit of selfish aims. That state would certainly be
arrived at, on the road he was travelling, but he was still young and
his very soul was longing to go back to his father and Lawyer Ed.
Again and again he tried to comfort himself with the promise that he
would make up to them for all they had done, oh, many times over, and
in the end, they would both realise that the course he had pursued was
for the best.

As he made this firm resolution, for the tenth time, the train drew up
at a little station in the woods. Roderick looked out at the steam
hissing from beneath his window and the dim light in the little
station. He recognised it as the junction, where a branch line ran
from the main road, across the country, through forest and by lake
shore, straight to Algonquin. The home train was approaching now. He
could hear its rumbling wheels and its clanging bell far down the
curving track, and the next moment, with a flare of light upon the
snow, it came tearing up out of the forest and roared into the little
station. Its brilliant windows flashed past his dazzled eyes. It
stopped with a great exhaled breath of relief and stood panting and
puffing after its long run. Roderick knew that if he chose he could
slip out, leap on that train and go speeding away up through the forest
and be in Algonquin before morning. He felt for a moment an almost
irresistible impulse to do it, to fling away everything and go back.
But he would look like a fool, and the people would laugh at him, and
quite rightly. He could not go back now.

There was a ge