stretching himself out upon the
bedstead, lay there, his hands clasped above his head and his eyes fixed
upon the glow of the fire in the adjoining room, where Aunt Mornin was at
work.

"A gentleman!" he said, half aloud. "That's it, by Jupiter, a gentleman!"

He remembered it afterwards as a curious coincidence that he should have
busied his mind so actively with his subject in a manner so unusual with
him.

His imagination not being sufficiently vivid to help him out of his
difficulty to his own satisfaction, he laboured with it patiently,
recurring to it again and again, and turning it over until it assumed a
greater interest than at first. He only relinquished it with an effort
when, going to bed later than usual, he made up his mind to compose
himself to sleep.

"Good Lord!" he said, turning on his side and addressing some unseen
presence representing the vexed question. "Don't keep a man awake: settle
it yourself." And finally sank into unconsciousness in the midst of his
mental struggle.

* * * * *

About the middle of the night he awakened. He felt that something had
startled him from his sleep, but could not tell what it was. A few
seconds he lay without moving, listening, and as he listened there came
to his ear the sound of a horse's feet, treading the earth restlessly
outside the door, the animal itself breathing heavily as if it had been
ridden hard; and almost as soon as he aroused to recognition of this
fact, there came a sharp tap on the door and a man's voice crying
"Hallo!"

He knew the voice at once, and unexpected as the summons was, felt he was
not altogether unprepared for it, though he could not have offered even
the weakest explanation for the feeling.

"He's in trouble," he said, as he sat up quickly in bed. "Something's
gone wrong." He rose and in a few seconds opened the door.

He had guessed rightly; it was the stranger. The moonlight fell full upon
the side of the house and the road, and the panting horse stood revealed
in a bright light which gave the man's face a ghostly look added to his
natural pallor. As he leaned forward, Tom saw that he was as much
exhausted as was the animal he had ridden.

"I want to find a doctor, or a woman who can give help to another," he
said.

"There ain't a doctor within fifteen miles from here," began Tom. He
stopped short. What he saw in the man's face checked him.

"Look here," he said, "is it you