you happen to hear who the
priest is who came with the girl?"

"His name was in the ledger. The Colonel said he was a father--Father
Honore, I can't pronounce it, from New York."

"Is he stopping at The Greenbush?"

"He's put up there for to-night anyway."

"I think I must see this priest; perhaps he can give me more detailed
information about the girl. That's all."

She went back into the library, closing the door after her. Octavius
shut his; then, standing there in the dimly lighted passageway, he
relieved himself by doubling both fists and shaking them vigorously at
the panels of that same door, the while he simulated, first with one
foot then with the other, a lively kick against the baseboard, muttering
between his set teeth:

"The devil if it's all, you devilly, divelly, screwy old--"

The door opened suddenly. Simultaneously with its opening Octavius had
sufficient presence of mind to blow out the light. He drew his breath
short and fumbled in his pocket for matches.

"Why, Tavy, you here!" (How well she knew that the familiar name "Tavy"
was the last turn of the thumbscrew for this factotum of the Champneys!
She never applied it unless she knew he was thoroughly worsted in the
game between them.) "I was coming to find you; I forgot to say that you
may go down to-morrow at nine and bring her up. I want to look her
over."

She closed the door. Octavius, without stopping to relight the lamp,
hurried up to his room in the ell, fearful lest he be recalled a fifth
time--a test of his powers of mental endurance to which he dared not
submit in his present perturbed state.

Mrs. Champney walked swiftly down the broad main hall, that ran through
the house, to the door opening on the north terrace whence there was an
unobstructed view up the three miles' length of Lake Mesantic to the
Flamsted Hills; and just there, through a deep depression in their
midst, the Rothel, a rushing brook, makes its way to the calm waters at
their gates. At this point, where the hills separate like the opening
sepals of a gigantic calyx, the rugged might of Katahdin heaves head and
shoulder into the blue.

The irregular margin of the lake is fringed with pines of magnificent
growth. Here and there the shores rise into cliffs, seamed at the top
and inset on the face with slim white lady birches, or jut far into the
waters as rocky promontories sparsely wooded with fir and balsam spruce.

Mrs. Champney stepped out upon the terra