otes had winged off in bars of music written in
fire against the darkness. He had not finished the dream when he was
awakened by someone knocking at his door.

It was Hughie, his face pale and disturbed.

"Mr. O'Neill," he said, "I'm wondering if you'd drive down to the
village and telephone the doctor to come here first. Mr. Craig's had a
bad fall. He's unconscious."

"Unconscious!" exclaimed Kenny, changing color. "How on earth, Hughie,
did he fall?"

"I don't know," said Hughie sadly. "He must have climbed out of bed in
the night."

"But, Hughie, he couldn't!"

"He could stagger a step or two," explained Hughie. "Not far. The
trouble's in his spine. But he never dragged himself so far before."

"How far?"

"From his bed to his sitting room. I found him in a heap by the fire."

"Poor devil!" said Kenny, shocked.

He dressed quickly. Hannah helped him hitch the old mare to the buggy
and found him nervous and unfamiliar with his task. Kenny drove off
down the lane, oppressed by the bleak wind and the bare black tangle of
branches ahead of him. The tragic effort of Adam's wasted legs had
left him startled and uneasy. For the life of him he could not put out
of his mind the tale of the old Irish woman and the chair she had left
by the fire on the Eve of All Souls for the visit of her dead son. It
had bothered Adam Craig and made him shudder. It bothered Kenny now.
He wished he hadn't remembered it last night or to-day. But the sound
of Nellie's hoofs plodding along the soft dirt road was no more
recurrent than his own foreboding. It filled him with sadness and
guilt. Adam perhaps had dragged himself to the sitting room fire in a
drunken fit of superstition. Seeking what? Someone he had _wronged_?
The sinister spark inflamed his fancy. His brain whirled.
Inexplicably the tale of the fairy mill and the rascal who stole the
widow's bag of meal linked itself with the mishap of the night before.
Then too Adam had fallen forward in his chair unconscious.

Nellie stumbled and jolted Kenny into sanity. He put his thoughts
aside in horror. But dreadful strings of mystery converged
persistently to one point: Adam Craig, the pitiful old miser who for
some reason huddled every book in the farmhouse on his shelves. Fate
cruelly had brought melancholy into this, the first morning of his
love. Kenny shivered with resentment.

He telephoned the doctor's farm and found him ready to start his weary