tramp the road, and then
I'll see."

With smothered imprecations, Sandy plunged into the snow.

Dr. Allen, quenching his unseemly mirth, sprang from the cutter and
came to his aid. There was something to arouse pity in the downfall of
the man of strength. Neither by word nor sign did Sandy recognize
either his or Elsie Cameron's presence. The atmosphere was too highly
charged to admit of ordinary courtesies. When the two men had trampled
a wide pathway, and made it sufficiently smooth and firm, the Duke of
Wellington condescended to march out of her citadel. There was no
smallest sign of haste in her movements; she stood and eyed the track
critically, as if doubtful as to whether she would use it, after all.
Her hesitation proved the last straw to her enemy's endurance. With an
inarticulate cry of rage Sandy McQuarry sprang toward her. The Duke
was tall and stately, and of no light weight, but he caught her up as
if she had been a child, and with a few mighty strides bore her along
the pathway. Reaching the road, he planted her in the middle of it
with a violent thud.

"The Lord Almighty peety the man that gets a wumman like you!" he
exclaimed with vehement solemnity. He strode back to his sleigh,
leaped upon his load, and lashed his horses into a gallop.

The Duke was perfectly calm. She bowed in her stateliest fashion to
Elsie and the doctor, but the twinkle in her eye answered the laughter
in the girl's. Then, arranging her basket more carefully on her arm,
she passed on her way as if nothing had happened.

Gilbert sprang into his cutter, and the two witnesses of poor Sandy's
Waterloo followed his tumultuous retreat up the valley. They were
young and light-hearted, and what wonder if one put aside her gravity
and the other his troubles, and both laughed all the way to the village?

It was not until they had gained the main highway, and Sandy had
disappeared, that they recovered their composure and could speak of
other things.

"And you did not get away for your vacation at New Year's," the girl
said. "That was too bad."

"No," said Gilbert, suddenly growing somber at the recollection.
"Everything conspired against me, it seemed. I couldn't get away."

"Uncle Hughie would say that everything had conspired for you. His
theory is the happiest one. He would tell you that if you had gone
probably some disastrous circumstance would have followed."

"Perhaps he is right," said the young man medit