to
find his way. He was not any too hasty in his decision. In a few minutes
the outlines of the stream and its banks were blended into a blurred
white mass. Then he could no longer see the shore at any distance, and
even the path was being blotted out.

He found, too, it was with difficulty that he could breathe, for the
incessant flying of the snow into his nostrils. Estimating, as best he
could, where the Half Way House must lie, he struck off from the stream
and headed for that. He stumbled on blindly, till his progress was
suddenly arrested by his bumping into an object that proved, most
fortunately, to be Colonel Witham's flag-pole. Even at that short
distance, the inn was now hidden; but he knew where it must be, and
presently stood safe upon its piazza.

It was an odd situation for Henry Burns. Once before, had Colonel Witham
refused him shelter under this roof, and that, too, in a storm. But he
knew there was no help for it now. He had got to enter--and he had got
to stay. No human being could go on to-night. He hesitated only for a
moment, and then opened the door and stepped within.

The office was vacant, and the air was chilly. The remains of a wood
fire smouldered, rather than burned, in the fireplace. There was no lamp
lighted, although it was quite dark, with the storm and approaching
evening. The place seemed deserted.

Henry Burns stepped to the desk, took a match from a box and lighted the
lamp that hung there. It cast a dismal glow, and added little to the
cheer of the place, although it enabled him to distinguish objects
better. He turned to the hearth, raked the embers together, blew up a
tiny blaze and replenished the fire from the wood-box. He threw off his
outer garments, and drew a chair toward the blaze.

But now, from an adjoining room, the door of which was slightly ajar,
there came unexpectedly a thin, querulous voice that startled him. He
recognized, the next moment, the tones of old Granny Thornton.

"Is that you, Dan?" she asked.

Henry Burns opened the door and answered. She seemed afraid, until he
had told her who he was, begging him to go away from the place and not
harm a poor, lone woman. But she recognized him, when he had spoken
again, and had lighted another lamp and held it for her to look at him.

She sat in an arm-chair, in which she had been evidently sleeping,
propped up with pillows; and looked ill and feeble.

"I'm cold," she said, and shivered.

Henry Burns dr