her dear face turned toward them.

"Come, sit down, Lans. You are as nervous as a ghost-candle."

"Thanks!" Treadwell took a chair across the hearth from his host.
"There's a devil of a storm rising out of doors."

"They're right common this season of the year. About six or seven
years ago there was one up here that came mighty near ending the
existence of a good many--it did carry one poor old darky woman away."

"That's cheerful! Sand, forgive me if I seem brutal, but do you know I
believe the cooking up here is giving me indigestion. I wouldn't mind
this if I didn't have your anatomy in mind, too. Those--what do you
call them?"

"Ash cakes?"

"Yes. They were, to put it mildly, damnable."

Sandy laughed.

"They were right ashy," he admitted. "Sally is old and careless."

"She'll murder you, if you don't look out."

Sandy kicked a log farther back on the hearth and the room was filled
with rosy light and warmth.

"Your father doesn't seem particularly drawn to me, Sand. Does he
always retire to his chamber as soon as he has finished his--his
evening meal? Somehow it looks pointed!"

Lans was not his usual, sunny self. The rising storm, his own
thoughts, and the evil ash cakes were having their way with him.

"I never question father, Lans. He is old. I want him to do exactly
as he chooses. You must not take offence."

"Certainly not. Only I do not want to feel I drive him away or deprive
you of his companionship. Ever since I told the joke about that bottle
of perfumery he seems to avoid me."

"Father hasn't a sense of humour," Sandy ventured, striving to keep the
bitterness of resentment from his voice.

"The devil!" ejaculated Lans. "That log spits like a hag. A spark
fell straight on my ankle."

"Excuse it," Sandy murmured, smiling as Lans nursed his silk-enclosed
ankle.

"Hang it all, Sand! I've got to get back to civilization!"

Sandy bent over the fire to conceal his feelings. "Not to-night,
surely," he said.

"No, but in a day or so. Morley, I--I want to tell you something.
Tell you why I cut and came up here right in the middle of things at
home."

The storm outside pounded on the windows; the fire flared and chuckled
crisply. Sandy thought about Cynthia, wondered where she was, and then
he became conscious of something Treadwell was saying.

"There was a time, Sand, when I couldn't have come to you with this. I
thought you were such an infernal puritan--but A