o
prepare the letter to his mother.

It is marvellous what trivial events alter destinies. In this instance
it was the yapping of a small dog which changed David's plans, and
finally sent him to South Africa instead of America. While paying his
bill at the hotel, a telegram was handed him, which he tore open as the
clerk was counting out his change. He still held in his hand the letter
to his mother which he was on the point of dropping in the letter-box at
his elbow. Instead, he thrust it in his pocket, along with the crushed
telegram, and, taking a cab, hastened to the steamship offices to cancel
his date for sailing.

The message read: "Return with all speed to London. Mr. Stretton lying
in the hospital with a fractured skull." Thus it was that Lady
Tredwell's pet spaniel, old and vicious, yapping at the heels of Mr.
Stretton's restive horse, while my lady's maid--who should have been
leading him out for an airing--was absorbed in listening to the
compliments of one of the park guards, played so dire a part in the
affairs of David Thryng.

CHAPTER XXVII

IN WHICH THE OLD DOCTOR AND LITTLE HOYLE COME BACK TO THE MOUNTAINS

Cassandra, seated on the great hanging rock before her cabin, watched
the sunrise where David had so often stood and waited for the dawn
during his winter there alone. This morning the mists obscured the
valleys and the base of the mountains, while the sky and the whole earth
glowed with warm rose color.

Presently she rose and walked with lifted head into the cabin, and
prepared to light a fire on the hearth. In the canvas room the bed was
made smoothly, as she had made it the morning David left. No one had
slept in it since, although Cassandra spent most of her days there.
Everything he had used was carefully kept as he had left it. His
microscope, covered from dust, stood with the last specimen still under
the lens. A book they were reading together lay on the corner shelf,
with the mark still in the place where they had read last.

After lighting the fire, she sat near it, watching the flames steal up
from the small pile of fat pine chips underneath, sending up red tongues
of fire, until the great logs were wrapped in the hot embrace of the
flames, trembling, quivering, and leaping high in their mad joy,
transmuting all they touched.

"It's like love," she murmured, and smiled. "Only it's quicker. It does
in one hour what love takes a lifetime to do. Those logs might have lain