rs, was suddenly to be foreclosed;
that, property not being worth much in the neighborhood, no one would
take it up; that on January 2nd, Fairfield, the house and land, were to
be sold at auction. It was a hard blow to Philip Beckwith. With his
hands in his overcoat pockets he began to walk up and down the room,
trying to plan, to see if by any chance he might save this place he
loved. It would mean eight thousand dollars to pay the mortgage. One or
two thousand more would put the estate in order, but that might wait if
he could only tide over this danger, save the house and land. An hour he
walked so, forgetting dinner, forgetting the heavy coat which he still
wore, and then he gave it up. With all he had saved--and it was a fair
and promising beginning--he could not much more than half pay the
mortgage, and there was no way, which he would consider, by which he
could get the money. Fairfield would have to go, and he set his teeth
and clinched his fists as he thought how he wanted to keep it. A year
ago it had meant nothing to him, a year from now if things went his way
he could have paid the mortgage. That it should happen just this
year--just now! He could not go down at Christmas; it would break his
heart to see the place again as his own when it was just slipping from
his grasp. He would wait until it was all over, and go, perhaps, in the
spring. The great hope of his life was still his own, but Fairfield had
been the setting of that hope; he must readjust his world before he saw
Shelby again. So he wrote them that he would not come at present, and
then tried to dull the ache of his loss with hard work.

But three days before Christmas, out of the unknown forces beyond his
reasoning swept a wave of desire to go South, which took him off his
feet. Trained to trust his brain and deny his impulse as he was, yet
there was a vein of sentiment, almost of superstition, in him which the
thought of the old place pricked sharply to life. This longing was
something beyond him--he must go--and he had thrown his decisions to the
winds and was feverish until he could get away.

As before, he rode out from the Phoenix Hotel, and at ten o'clock in
the morning he turned into Fairfield. It was a still, bright Christmas
morning, crisp and cool, and the air like wine. The house stood bravely
in the sunlight, but the branches above it were bare and no softening
leafage hid the marks of time; it looked old and sad and deserted
to-day,