he found Conscience, arrived in advance
of him.

But as he had crossed his threshold Farquaharson had seen an envelope
lying in the light that flooded through, and he recognized Conscience's
hand in the address as he picked it up. Remembering what she had said
about writing to him he was not surprised, and wishing to save the
missive until he should be alone again, he thrust it into the pocket of
his bath robe.

"I wonder who it can be--on such a night?" murmured the woman, and the
man suggested:

"Perhaps you had better let me investigate. I imagine some motorist has
come to grief in the storm."

When he threw open the door, Eben Tollman stepped in.

The elder man stood for a moment glancing from his guest to his wife,
and in that instant of scrutiny whatever of the inquisitorial might have
lurked in his eyes left them for a bland suavity. Conscience had
hastened forward and her lips were smiling. Farquaharson's eyes dared to
meet his own with a level straightforwardness.

But Tollman read into both the smile and the straight-gazing eyes a
hypocrisy which superlatively embittered the blood in his veins.

Conscience was standing before him with the exquisite clarity of her
complexion unclouded; with the dark pools of her eyes unvexed by the
weight of hideous perfidy that should be stifling her heart.

This capping off of infamy with an angelic pretext of innocence was the
supreme insult not only to Eben Tollman, outraged husband and man, but
to the Righteousness he served, the Righteousness which he now seemed to
hear calling trumpet-tongued for the reprisal which was at hand.

"What in the world has happened to you?" he heard his wife exclaiming in
an astonished voice, and he laughed as he responded:

"I came back. Haven't you a kiss for me, my dear?" Then when she raised
her lips to his an inner voice, which spoke only madness, whispered
viciously, "The Judas woman! The unspeakable infamy!"

He explained that he had missed his train, and that when he telephoned
to Boston, he learned that the matter could after all be deferred. A man
from Chicago had also failed to arrive.

"But the train has been in for hours," Farquaharson reminded him with a
puzzled tinge in his voice. "It can't have taken you this long to drive
from Tanner."

"No, I didn't drive. The idea struck me of getting off at West Tanner
and walking over. The old mare went lame and I didn't want to give her
any more work to-night.... Then th