kly. "You ought to go to
Kathryn. No filial duty toward me, dear! I'm a terribly self-sufficient
woman."

"Bully! And that's why I want to have dinner with you alone. I've got
used to the self-sufficient woman--I like her."

It was long after eight o'clock, that first evening, when Northrup
left his mother's house.

So powerfully hypnotic is memory that as he walked along in the bland
summer night he shivered and recalled the snowstorm that blotted him
out after his last interview with Kathryn. With all earnestness he had
prepared himself for this hour. He was ready to take up his life and
live it well--only so could he justify what he had endured. His
starved senses, too, rose to reinforce him. He craved the beauty,
sweetness, and tenderness--though he was half afraid of them. They had
so long been eliminated from his rugged existence that he wondered how
he was again to take them as his common fare.

He paused before touching the bell at the Morris house. Again that
hypnotic shiver ran over him; but to his touch on the bell there was
immediate response.

"Will you wait, sir, in the reception-room?" The trim maid looked
flurried. "I will tell Miss Kathryn at once."

Northrup sat down in the dim room, fragrant with flowers, and a sense
of peace overcame his doubts.

Now the Morris house was curiously constructed. The main stairway and
a stairway leading to a side entrance converged at the second landing,
thus making it possible for any one to leave the house more privately,
should he so desire, than by the more formal way.

After leaving Northrup in the reception-room, the maid was stopped by
Miss Anna Morris somewhere in the hall. A hurried whispered
conversation ensued and made possible what dramatically followed.

A door above opened--the library door--and it seemed to set free
Kathryn's nervous, metallic laugh and Sandy Arnold's hard, indignant
words:

"What's the hurry? I guess I understand." Almost it seemed as if the
girl were pushing the man before her. "I was good enough to pass the
time with; pay for your fun while you weighed the chances."

"Please, Sandy, you are cruel." Kathryn was pleading.

"Cruel be damned! And what are you? I want you--you've told me that
you loved me--what's the big idea?"

"Oh! Sandy, do lower your voice. Aunt Anna will think the servants are
quarrelling."

"All right." Sandy's voice sank a degree. "But I'm going to put this
to you square----" The two above had come