e storm broke and I took refuge in an
empty ice-house."

Conscience said suddenly: "But, Eben, you are soaked--and if you've been
wandering about like that, you can't have had any supper."

"No," he shook his head. "I haven't and I'm starving."

Including them both, he suggested with a frank seeming of pleasure.
"However, I'm glad to be back. Did I wake you both up? You seem to have
made a short evening of it."

"I haven't been asleep," answered Stuart, and Conscience added: "Nor I."

"I noticed," went on the husband evenly, "that the lower floor was dark,
as I came up ... your window, too, Stuart, when I first saw it."

"You must have come very slowly," replied the younger man with a
calmness that struck the other as the acme of effrontery. "My light has
been burning for ten minutes ... but I don't make out how you saw my
window if you came from the front of the house."

Eben winced a little, but his smile only became more urbane.

"Quite true, my boy. You see I tried my latch key first, and finding the
house dark, I sought to avoid disturbing the sleepers. I went to the
back door and the side door. Finally I knocked. Since neither of you was
asleep it's all right."

"Perhaps after being in the fog so long," Conscience suggested, "a
little brandy might be advisable," but Eben Tollman laughed.

"My dear, for some unaccountable reason, I feel as if I'd been away from
home as long as Enoch Arden--and I'm much happier to be back. I am in
the mood for celebration. There's a bottle of old Madeira in the pantry.
I don't think a little of it will harm any of us ... and I'm going to
dissipate even farther. I'm going to smoke a cigar." Smoking a cigar was
with Eben a rite which occurred with the frequency of a Christmas or a
Thanksgiving dinner.

Something youthful had come into his manner, and Farquaharson, in spite
of his misery, laughed.

"I'm afraid I'm hardly dressed for a party," he demurred, but Eben
answered in a tone of aggrieved hospitality.

"My dear fellow, you are much more fully dressed than when you go
bathing; both of you--and how can I celebrate alone?" So Stuart
smilingly asserted:

"All right. We'll have a toast in your excellent Madeira to the return
of Enoch Arden."

Possibly his voice held a meaning less light than his words. Perhaps he
was thinking of it as a toast to his own departure into exile, but to
Eben it had the ring of a sneer, as though the words "too late" had been
added.

C