ped into drum-beat. One was
addressed in her hand, and that one he thrust into his pocket, as one
saves the best to read last.

The other was an invitation from Colonel Wallifarro: an engraved blank
filled in with a name and date. In a secluded corner of the hard-frozen,
state house grounds he sat on a bench to read the note from Anne, but
when he had torn the envelope and glanced at the sheet the light went
out of his eyes and his bronzed cheeks became suddenly drawn.

"I thought you might like to know," she said. "The invitation from Uncle
Tom looks innocent enough, but I don't think you'd enjoy the party. It's
given to announce my engagement to Morgan."

Boone sat there dazed, while in the icy air his breath floated cloudlike
before his lips.

Eventually he awoke to some realization of the passage of time, and
looked at his watch. It was past the hour for the roll-call on the bill
which his absence might deliver into the hands of the enemy, the cause
for which he and his colleagues had been fighting.

He came with an effort to his feet and went heavily through the corridor
and into the chamber. At the door, where he leaned against the casing,
he heard the clerk of the house calling the roll, and the staccato
"Ayes" and "Noes" of the responses. Already the alphabetical sequence
had progressed to the U's, and soon his own name would follow. Then it
came, and at first his stiff tongue could not answer. He was licking his
lips and his throat worked with some spasmodic reflex. Finally he heard
a strained and unnatural voice, which he could hardly recognize as his
own, answering "No."

Heads turned toward him at the queer sound, and from somewhere rose a
twittering of laughter. That was perhaps natural enough, for to the
casual and uncomprehending eye he made a spectacle both sorry and
ludicrous--this usually self-contained young man who now stood
stammering and disordered of guise, like a fellow not wholly recovered
from a night-long debauch.

CHAPTER XXXVII

The transforming touch of a razor, a studied amendment of manner and
apparel, and the passing of ten years: these are things which can work
an effective disguise for an Enoch Arden returned to village streets
that knew him long ago. Quietly dressed in clothes that were neither
good enough nor mean enough to arrest the passing eye, a middle-aged man
dropped from the evening train onto the cinder platform at Marlin Town.

Shrewd winds whipped in thro