t thing you ever DID hear!"

At this moment the outside door opened to admit Mr and Mrs. Hubbard, who
had, according to their usual Sunday custom, been spending the evening
with a neighbour. This was the signal for departure. The company began
to break up.

Orde pushed his broad shoulders in to screen Carroll Bishop from the
others.

"Are you staying here?" he asked.

She opened her eyes wide at his brusqueness.

"I'm visiting Jane," she replied at length, with an affectation of
demureness.

"Are you going to be here long?" was Orde's next question.

"About a month."

"I am coming to see you," announced Orde. "Good-night."

He took her hand, dropped it, and followed the others into the hall,
leaving her standing by the lamp. She watched him until the outer
door had closed behind him. Not once did he look back. Jane Hubbard,
returning after a moment from the hall, found her at the piano again,
her head slightly one side, playing with painful and accurate exactness
a simple one-finger melody.

Orde walked home down the hill in company with the Incubus. Neither had
anything to say; Orde because he was absorbed in thought, the Incubus
because nothing occurred to draw from him his one remark. Their feet
clipped sharply against the tar walks, or rang more hollow on the
boards. Overhead the stars twinkled through the still-bare branches of
the trees. With few exceptions the houses were dark. People "retired"
early in Redding. An occasional hall light burned dimly, awaiting some
one's return. At the gate of the Orde place, Orde roused himself to say
good-night. He let himself into the dim-lighted hall, hung up his
hat, and turned out the gas. For some time he stood in the dark,
quite motionless; then, with the accuracy of long habitude, he walked
confidently to the narrow stairs and ascended them. Subconsciously he
avoided the creaking step, but outside his mother's door he stopped,
arrested by a greeting from within.

"That you, Jack?" queried Grandma Orde.

For answer Orde pushed open the door, which stood an inch or so ajar,
and entered. A dim light from a distant street-lamp, filtered through
the branches of a tree, flickered against the ceiling. By its aid
he made out the great square bed, and divined the tiny figure of his
mother. He seated himself sidewise on the edge of the bed.

"Go to Jane's?" queried grandma in a low voice, to avoid awakening
grandpa, who slept in the adjoining room.

"Yes," replie