st the wall and shook with
laughter. Penelope's convulsed face was glued to the kitchen window,
her eyes peering into the fog beyond. Shadowy figures leaped into the
white mantle; the crash of brush came back to her ears, and then,
like the barking of a dog, there arose from the mystic gray the fast
diminishing cry:

"Help! Help! Help!" Growing fainter and sharper the cry at last was
lost in the phantom desert.

They stood at the window and watched the fog lift, gray and
forbidding, until the trees and road were discernible. Then, arm in
arm, they set forth across the wet way toward Shaw's cottage. The
mists cleared as they walked along, the sun peeped through the hills
as if afraid to look upon the devastation of the night; all the world
seemed at peace once more.

"Poor Cecil!" she sighed. "It was cruel of you." In the roadway they
found a hat which she at once identified as the count's. Farther on
there was a carriage lamp, and later a mackintosh which had been cast
aside as an impediment. "Oh, it _was_ cruel!" She smiled, however, in
retrospection.

An hour later they stood together on the broad porch, looking out over
the green, glistening hills. The warm fresh air filled their lungs and
happiness was overcrowding their hearts. In every direction were signs
of the storm's fury. Great trees lay blasted, limbs and branches were
scattered over the ground, wide fissures split the roadway across
which the deluge had rushed on its way down the slope.

But Penelope was warm and dry and safe after her thrilling night. A
hot breakfast was being prepared for them; trouble seemed to have gone
its way with the elements.

"If I were only sure that nothing serious had happened to Cecil," she
murmured anxiously.

"I'm sorry, dear, for that screech of mine," he apologized.

Suddenly he started and gazed intently in the direction of the haunted
house. A man--a sorry figure--was slowly, painfully approaching from
the edge of the wood scarce a hundred yards away. In his hand he
carried a stick to which was attached a white cloth--doubtless a
handkerchief. He was hatless and limped perceptibly. The two on the
porch watched his approach in amazed silence.

"It's Cecil!" whispered Penelope in horror-struck tones. "Good heaven,
Randolph, go to him! He is hurt."

It was Lord Bazelhurst. As Shaw hurried down the drive to meet him,
no thought of the feud in mind, two beings even more hopelessly
dilapidated ventured from the wo