y spruces whose lusty little
branches bore up the snow like myriad arms. When Lorimer emerged from
the shallow caverns beneath, his temper was of the blackest, and, all
the rest of the way home, he had stalked along in gloomy silence, ten
feet in the rear of his companion's heels.

Thayer had judged that it would he well to invite himself to stay to
dinner at the cottage. Lorimer had been in one of his worst moods, and
even Thayer had found it wellnigh impossible to keep the talk brisk and
amicable. He had remained until he had seen that Lorimer was at last
yielding to the inevitable drowsiness of his long day in the open air;
then he had started back to the hotel. Once outside the cottage,
however, he had squared his shoulders and drawn a deep breath of relief.
He needed mental ozone; but even physical ozone was better than mental
nitrous oxide.

And now he was standing at the snow-veiled window, looking across at the
cottage while he hummed to himself the recurring, haunting Famine
Theme,--

"_O the famine and the fever!
O the wasting of the famine!
O the blasting of the fever!_"

He had no notion of the truth of his words. Had he done so, the cottage,
not the hotel, would have held him, that day, and the tragedy, so long
averted, might have been warded off a little longer. But fate willed
otherwise. To Thayer's mind, Lorimer, storm-bound and weary from his
tramp of the day before, would spend the day, drowsing, novel in hand,
before the open fire. Thayer, in his own absolute integrity, could never
imagine the truth: that Lorimer's trusty attendant had at last yielded
to the temptation of the oft-repeated bribe and had given into Lorimer's
hands the bottle from which he was used to measure out, medicine-wise,
the daily lessening allowance of brandy. He could not know how often,
all that day, Beatrix went to the window and looked out across the storm
in the hope of seeing him come striding to her through the snow. Had it
been possible, she would have sent for him; but it was a day when women
are safest inside a house, and she dared not remove either Lorimer's man
or the old butler from their close guard over her husband. She had been
utterly opposed to bringing the faithful old butler with them; but now
she was glad that she had yielded to his begging. He had been with her
father since her childhood, and had insisted upon following "Miss
Beatrix" into her new home. Without him now, she would have been