e arrival of an
event.

"Mister Marsh," I said, "are you afraid of Ward? Isn't he good for the
money?"

"Don't worry about that, my boy," he answered, taking up the
candlestick, "I have said that you shall have the cattle, and you shall
have them. Let me see about a bed for you."

Then he went out, closing the door after him.

I turned to Jud, and he pointed his finger to a letter lying on the
mantelpiece. I arose and picked it up. It bore Cynthia's seal and was
open.

Let us forgive little Miss Pandora. Old Jupiter ought to have known
better. And the dimpled wife of Bluebeard! That forbidden door was so
tremendously alluring!

I think I should have pulled the letter out of its envelope had I not
feared that this man would return and find it in my fingers. I showed
the seal to Jud and replaced it on the mantelpiece.

He slapped his leg. "Twiggs brought that," he said, "an' he's gone on to
Westfall's. What does it say?"

"I didn't read it," I answered.

The man heaved his shoulders up almost to his ears. "Quiller," he said,
"you can't root, if you have a silk nose."

I think I should have fallen, but at this moment Nicholas Marsh came
back with his candle, and said we ought to sleep if we wished an early
start in the morning. I followed him up the bare stairway to my room on
the north side of the house. He placed the candlestick on the table,
promised to call me early, then bade me good-night and went away.

I watched his broad back disappear in the shadow of the hall. Then I
closed the door and latched it. Rigid honesty has its disadvantages.
Here was a man almost persuaded to insist upon a right that was valid
but unusual, and deeply worried because he had almost yielded to the
urging. It takes good men to see the fine shades of such a thing.

There was a broad window in this room, with the bare limbs of the maples
brushing against its casement. I looked out before I went to bed. Beyond
the Valley River, great smoky shadows cloaked the hills, gilded along
their borders by the rising moon; hills that sat muffled in the foldings
of their robes, waiting for the end,--waiting for man to play out the
game and quit, and the Great Manager to pull down his scenery.

I blew out the candle, and presently slept as one sleeps when he is
young. Sometime in the night I sat bolt upright in the good bed to
listen. I had heard,--or was I dreaming,--floating up from some far
distance, the last faint echo of that voice o