r. Below in the moonlight a man was
climbing up from the river.

"Brian," she called breathlessly, "is it you?"

"Yes."

"Dr. Cole will scold. It's twelve o'clock."

Brian tossed his cigarette away with a sigh.

"He'll never know. I've been sitting down there in the punt. The
river's silver. Come down for a while," he implored. "All evening
I've been as lonely as a leper. Ever since you motored off with Kenny,
Don's been a grouch. Can't you climb down the vine?"

"I--I can't, Brian."

"Please, Joan. I'll tell Kenny myself in the morning."

"No," said Joan. "I--can't. I--I wish I could."

"So do I," said Brian. He walked away.

Shaking and sobbing, Joan flung herself upon the bed.

"Sid writes me you're home," Kenny wrote to Garry in September. "What
about the car? Come up for a while and drive it home. We can do some
sketching. Brian's full of Irish melancholy and waiting for word from
Whitaker. He may go any time. Joan's tired and busy with clothes.
Don's cranky and I'm rather at a loose end, hunting things to do."

Puzzled, Garry went.

"I can't make out what's wrong," he wrote to Sid, "Kenny's rational
enough, but Brian's strung to the breaking point. I suspect it's just
as it always has been--they're miserable apart and hopeless together.
But the year has been a sobering one, and what used to flash, they
bottle up. In my opinion the sooner Brian gets away the better. He's
not himself."

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE TENSION SNAPS

Months back Fate had flung out a skein of broken threads to the wind of
Chance. In mid September she chose to bring the flying ends together.

It began when Hannah dropped a dipper. Hughie on his way to the
wood-box with an armful of kindlings jumped and dropped them with a
clatter. And he stepped on Toby's tail and swore. Hannah and Hughie
and Toby, startled, shared a sharp moment of resentment.

"Hughie," Hannah's impatience keyed her voice a trifle high, "'pon my
honor I don't know what gets into you. Ever since you took to diggin'
dots you've been as nervous as a cat. You're full of jumps. It's my
opinion if the doctor hadn't told you that Mr. O'Neill himself buried
the money in the fireplace, you'd be diggin' dots in a lunatic asylum!"

Hughie's horrified face of warning turned her cold with foreboding.
Hannah turned and gasped.

Joan stood behind her.

"Hannah," she asked, "what did you say?"

"I--I don't know," said Hannah, scarlet