her summons that she stopped the carriage at
the Woodlawn gates and went directly to comfort Mrs. Martha and to offer
her services in the sick-room. Tom was in one of his stubbornest
paroxysms when she entered, but at the touch of her hand he became
quiet, and a little later fell into a deep sleep, the first since the
Saturday night of coma and stertorous breathings.

That same afternoon Crestcliffe Inn lost another guest, and the
smoking-room at Warwick Lodge was lighted far into the night. Two men
talked in low tones behind the carefully-shaded windows, one of them,
the younger, lounging in the depths of an easy-chair, and the other
pacing the floor in deepest abstraction.

"I only know what Ardea tells me," said the lounger, answering the final
question put by the floor pacer. "He's out of his head--and out of the
way, temporarily, at least. Now is your time to strike."

Mr. Duxbury Farley nodded his head slowly.

"It was providential for us, Vincent, this assault just at the critical
moment. I have struck. I had an interview with Caleb this evening and
made him an offer for the pipe plant. He is to give us his answer
to-morrow morning."

Silence fell for a little time, and then the younger man in the wicker
chair smote his palms together.

"Curse him!" he gritted vengefully, transferring his thought from Caleb
Gordon to Caleb Gordon's son. "I hope he'll die!"

The elder man paused in his walk. "Why, Vincent, my son! What has come
over you? It is merely a matter of business, and we mustn't be
vindictive."

"Business be damned!" snarled the younger man. "Can't you see? She has
promised to marry me--and she loves _him_. Are you going to bed? Well,
I'm not. I've got something else to do first."

A few minutes later he let himself noiselessly out at the side door of
the Lodge, and turned down the avenue in the direction of Deer Trace.
But after crossing the bridge over the creek, he took a diagonal course
through the stubble-fields and bore to the right. And when he finally
reached and climbed the wall into the pike, it was at a point directly
opposite the forking of the rough wood road which led off to the Pine
Knob settlement.

As he leaped over into the highway, a man carrying a squirrel gun
stepped from behind a tree.

"I was allowin' you'd done forgot," said the man, yawning sleepily.

"I never forget," was the short rejoinder. Then: "Come with me, and you
shall hear with your own ears, since you won