an" was better and far more common.
Neither did it follow that this person was of a family he remembered
far too well; and so Mr. Dutton reassured himself. In any case the
youth was now "the stranger within the gates" and therefore entitled
to the best.

"Adrian, then. We are a simple household, following the old habit of
early to bed and to rise. You must be tired enough to sleep anywhere,
and there is another big lounge in my study. You would best occupy it
to-night, and to-morrow Angelique will fix you better quarters. Few
guests favor us in our far-away home," he finished with a smile that
was full of hospitality.

Adrian rose at once and bidding Margot and Angelique good-night,
followed his host into a big room which, save for the log walls, might
have been the library of some city home. It was a room which somehow
gave him the impression of vastness, liberality, and freedom--an
enclosed bit of the outside forest. Like each of the other apartments
he had seen it had its great fireplace and its blazing logs, not at
all uncomfortable now in the chill that had come after the storm.

But he was too worn out to notice much more than these details, and
without undressing, dropped upon the lounge and drew the Indian
blanket over him. His head rested upon great pillows stuffed with
fragrant spruce needles, and this perfume of the woods soothed him
into instant sleep.

But Hugh Dutton stood for many minutes, gravely studying the face of
the unconscious stranger. It was a comely, intelligent face, though
marred by self-will and indulgence, and with each passing second its
features grew more and more painfully familiar. Why, why, had it come
into his distant retreat to disturb his peace? A peace that it had
taken fifteen years of life to gain, that had been achieved only by
bitter struggle with self and with all that was lowest in a noble
nature.

"Alas! And I believed I had at last learned to forgive!"

But none the less because of the bitterness would this man be unjust.
His very flesh recoiled from contact with that other flesh, fair as it
might be in the sight of most eyes, yet he forced himself to draw with
utmost gentleness the covering over the sleeper's shoulders, and to
interpose a screening chair between him and the firelight.

"Well, one may at least control his actions, if not his thoughts," he
murmured and quietly left the place.

A few moments later he stood regarding Margot, also, as she lay in
sleep