ory of his romantic history and its startling denouement which had
come they said through the death bed confessions of the man Roberts which
had only just reached the older Massey's hands, strangely enough on the
eve of his own tragic death, which was again related to make the tale a
little more of a thriller. That was all the world knew, was ever to know
for the Holidays and John Massey kept the dead man's secret well.

And the grass grew green on Alan Massey's grave. The sun and dew and rain
laid tender fingers upon it and great crimson and gold hearted roses
strewed their fragrant petals upon it year by year. The stars he had
loved so well shone down upon the lonely spot where his body slept quiet
at last after the torment of his brief and stormy life. But otherwise, as
John Massey and Tony Holiday believed, his undefeated spirit fared on
splendidly in its divine quest of beauty.

CHAPTER XXXIX

IN WHICH THE TALE ENDS IN THE HOUSE ON THE HILL

The winter had at last decided to recapture its forsaken role of the Snow
King. For two days and as many nights the air had been one swirl of snow
which shut out earth and sky. But on the third morning the Hill woke to a
dazzling world of cloudless blue and trackless white. A resplendent
bride-like day it was and fitly so for before sundown the old House on
the Hill was to know another bride. Elinor Ruth Farringdon's affairs
required her immediate attention in Australia and she was leaving
to-night for that far away island which was again now dear to her heart
as the home of her happy childhood, the memory of which had now all
returned after months of strange obliteration. But she would not go as
Elinor Ruth Farringdon. That name was to be shed as absolutely as her
recollection of it had once been shed. She would go as Mrs. Laurence
Holiday with a real wedding ring all her own and a real husband also all
her own by her side.

There were to be no guests outside the family except for the Lamberts,
Carlotta and Dick--John Massey, as they were now trying to learn to call
him. The wedding was to be very quiet not only because of Granny but
because they were all very pitiful of Tony's still fresh grief, the more
so because she bore it so bravely and quietly, anxious lest she cast any
shadow upon the happiness of the others, especially that of Larry and
Ruth. In any case a quiet wedding would have been the choice of the two
who were most concerned. They wanted only their n