wind drove against him like a granite cliff.
Now and then he stopped, gasping, as if an invisible hand had tightened
an iron band about his body; then he started again, stiffening himself
against the stealthy penetration of the cold. The snow continued to
descend out of a pall of inscrutable darkness, and once or twice he
paused, fearing he had missed the road to Northridge; but, seeing no
sign of a turn, he ploughed on.

At last, feeling sure that he had walked for more than a mile, he halted
and looked back. The act of turning brought immediate relief, first
because it put his back to the wind, and then because, far down the
road, it showed him the gleam of a lantern. A sleigh was coming--a
sleigh that might perhaps give him a lift to the village! Fortified by
the hope, he began to walk back toward the light. It came forward very
slowly, with unaccountable sigsags and waverings; and even when he was
within a few yards of it he could catch no sound of sleigh-bells. Then
it paused and became stationary by the roadside, as though carried by
a pedestrian who had stopped, exhausted by the cold. The thought made
Faxon hasten on, and a moment later he was stooping over a motionless
figure huddled against the snow-bank. The lantern had dropped from its
bearer's hand, and Faxon, fearfully raising it, threw its light into the
face of Frank Rainer.

"Rainer! What on earth are you doing here?"

The boy smiled back through his pallour. "What are _you_, I'd like to
know?" he retorted; and, scrambling to his feet with a clutch oh Faxon's
arm, he added gaily: "Well, I've run you down!"

Faxon stood confounded, his heart sinking. The lad's face was grey.

"What madness--" he began.

"Yes, it _is_. What on earth did you do it for?"

"I? Do what?... Why I.... I was just taking a walk.... I often walk at
night...."

Frank Rainer burst into a laugh. "On such nights? Then you hadn't
bolted?"

"Bolted?"

"Because I'd done something to offend you? My uncle thought you had."

Faxon grasped his arm. "Did your uncle send you after me?"

"Well, he gave me an awful rowing for not going up to your room with
you when you said you were ill. And when we found you'd gone we were
frightened--and he was awfully upset--so I said I'd catch you.... You're
_not_ ill, are you?"

"Ill? No. Never better." Faxon picked up the lantern. "Come; let's go
back. It was awfully hot in that diningroom."

"Yes; I hoped it was only that."

They trudg