slid away into the
shadows.

"Get in," said Oliver curtly to Anthony Crawford, while Janet opened
the door of the second motor and slipped to the far side to give him
room. None of the three spoke as they went down the drive behind
Cousin Tom. As they came through the gate they could hear, faintly,
the wild clanging of the bell in the valley below.

Oliver was too much occupied with his driving to have any other
thought, Janet was awed into silence by the alien presence at her
side, but Anthony Crawford, in that same husky, broken voice,
suddenly began to speak as though he were following his thoughts out
loud.

"I don't know why I came back to Medford Valley," he said. "I had
lived through every sort of thing since I went away, but I was making
good at last. Martha--that's the girl I married, she was a miner's
daughter--had helped me to go straight. I was working in a mine,
harder work than I had ever dreamed of in my life. It was good for me,
yet I kept telling myself that it was being in prison. Perhaps it was,
but I had forgotten that prison was the place where I ought to be."

Oliver tilted back his head that he might hear better, but his only
answer was an inarticulate sound like a mutter of agreement. To reach
the valley as soon as possible and without mishap, was more important
to him, at that moment, than explanations. But Janet looked up with
round, wondering eyes, eager to hear the rest.

"I kept thinking how it was here at home, so green and clean and
peaceful, not like that stark, bare mountain country where I seemed to
be working my whole life away. I told myself that a certain portion of
Medford Valley belonged to me, that I could come back and live a life
of dignified idleness, if only I had my rights, if only Jasper would
give me what was my own."

"But it wasn't true. You knew that he wouldn't keep what belonged to
you," burst out Janet.

"I knew it wasn't true, but people love to deceive themselves, and I
had to explain to Martha. She would never have come if she had known
how things really stood; she was unwilling, even as it was. But I was
so sure, I thought I knew Jasper so well, exactly how I could threaten
him, just where I could hurt him most. Had I not learned, when I was a
boy, how proud and sensitive and generous he could be? I was as
successful as I had hoped to be, but I wanted more and more, and see
where it has brought me in the end!"

It seemed a relief to him to confess the