of the third of November Miss Bourdon had driven over
in the light wagon from the farm to the city, to receive her usual,
eagerly-looked-for package from Mr. Gilbert. It had been dark and windy
from early morning. As the afternoon wore on, the sky grew darker, the
wind higher. She got her bundle of books, visited one or two stores, one
or two friends, and night had fallen before she turned old Kitty's head
towards Kent Farm. A faint and watery moon made its way up through the
drifts of jagged cloud, and the gale howled through the street as though
it had gone mad. It was a lonely and unpleasant ride; but old Kitty
could have made her way asleep, and Norine sang to herself as she drove
slowly along. They were within a quarter of a mile of the house, when
Kitty pricked up her red ears, gave a neigh of alarm, and shied from
some long, dark object lying motionless across her path. Norine bent
over and looked down. There, she saw, lying on his face, the prostrate
form of a man.

Was he drunk, or was he dead? She was out in a twinkling, and bending
above him. There was blood on his clothes, and on the dusty road. She
turned his face over until the pallid moon shone upon it. Dead, to all
seeming, the eyes closed, life and consciousness gone.

Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Laurence Thorndyke was lying in the best
bedroom of Kent Farm, with Aunt Hester and Norine bending over him, and
Uncle Joe scudding along on horseback for a doctor. All their efforts to
bring him out of that fainting fit were vain. White and cold he lay; and
so Norine Bourdon, with a great pity in her heart, looked first upon the
face of Laurence Thorndyke.

CHAPTER IV.

THE LAWYER'S WARNING.

Mr. Gilbert appeared in no hurry to revisit his friends at Kent Farm. It
was late in the afternoon of the next day before he came slowly along
the quiet country road. He had passed the morning idly enough, staring
from the hotel window, down at the peaceful street and the few
straggling passers by. After his three o'clock dinner he had put on hat
and overcoat, and leisurely taken his way over the familiar ground.

It was a gray December afternoon, with a threatening of coming storm in
the overcast sky. A few feathery flakes whirled already through the
leaden air, an icy blast blew up from the sea, the road was deserted,
the dreary fields snow-shrouded and forsaken. And only yesterday it
seemed he had walked here by her side, the golden grain breast high, and