y of a long-since acquired knowledge of him. And when
he spoke, although his voice was quiet and level, she felt a great
fatigue in his accent.

But he spoke with his usual natural intonation, which he evidently tried
to make cheerful. "I'm awfully glad you're still up, dear. I was afraid
you'd be too tired, with the funeral coming tomorrow. But I couldn't get
here any sooner. I've been clear over the mountain today. And I've done
a pretty good stroke of business that I'm in a hurry to tell you about.
You remember, don't you, how the Powers lost the title to their big
woodlot? I don't know if you happen to remember all the details, how a
lawyer named Lowder . . ."

"I remember," said Marise, speaking for the first time, "all about it."

"Well," went on Neale, wearily but steadily, "up in Nova Scotia this
time, talking with one of the old women in town, I ran across a local
tradition that, in a town about ten miles inland, some of the families
were descended from Tory Yankees who'd been exiled from New England,
after the Revolution. I thought it was worth looking up, and one day I
ran up there to see if I could find out anything about them. It was
Sunday and I had to . . ."

Marise was beside herself, her heart racing wildly. She took hold of his
arm and shook it with all her might. "Neale, quick! quick! Leave out all
that. _What did you do?_"

She could see that he was surprised by her fierce impatience, and for an
instant taken aback by the roughness of the interruption. He stared at
her. How _slow_ Neale was!

He began, "But, dear, why do you care so much about it? You can't
understand about what I did, if I don't tell you this part, the
beginning, how I . . ." Then, feeling her begin to tremble uncontrollably,
he said hastily, "Why, of course, Marise, if you want to know the end
first. The upshot of it all is that I've got it straightened out, about
the Powers woodlot. I got track of those missing leaves from the Ashley
Town Records. They really were carried away by that uncle of yours. I
found them up in Canada. I had a certified copy and tracing made of
them. It's been a long complicated business, and the things only came in
yesterday's mail, after you'd been called over here. But I'd been in
correspondence with Lowder, and when I had my proofs in hand, I
telephoned him and made him come over yesterday afternoon. It was one of
the biggest satisfactions I ever expect to have, when I shoved those
papers under