ateway, and up what appeared to be
a hedged lane.

The lane presently disclosed itself as an avenue, now doubly lined with
tall trees; this avenue he continued to follow, passing through a grove
of locusts, and came out before a house on the low crest of a hill.

There were clumps of evergreens about, tall cedars, a bit of bushy
foreland, and a stretch of snow. And across this open space of snow a
young girl was moving, followed by a white wolf-hound. Once she paused,
hesitated, looked cautiously around her. Ruthven, hiding behind a bush,
saw her thrust her arm into a low evergreen shrub and draw out a shining
object that glittered like glass. Then she started toward the house
again.

At first Ruthven thought she was his wife, then he was not sure, and he
cast his cigar away and followed, slinking forward among the evergreens.
But the youthful fur-clad figure kept straight on to the veranda of the
house, and Ruthven, curious and determined to find out whether it was
Alixe or not, left the semi-shelter of the evergreens and crossed the
open space just as the woman's figure disappeared around an angle of the
veranda.

Vexed, determined not to return without some definite discovery, Ruthven
stepped upon the veranda. Just around the angle of the porch he heard a
door opening, and he hurried forward impatient and absolutely unafraid,
anxious to get one good look at his wife and be off.

But when he turned the angle of the porch there was no one there; only
an open door confronted him, with a big, mild-eyed wolf-hound standing
in the doorway, looking steadily up at him.

Ruthven glanced somewhat dubiously at the dog, then, as the animal made
no offensive movement, he craned his fleshy neck, striving to see inside
the house.

He did see--nothing very much--only the same young girl, still in her
furs, emerging from an inner room, her arms full of dolls.

In his eagerness to see more, Ruthven pushed past the great white dog,
who withdrew his head disdainfully from the unceremonious contact, but
quietly followed Ruthven into the house, standing beside him, watching
him out of great limpid, deerlike eyes.

But Ruthven no longer heeded the dog. His amused and slightly sneering
gaze was fastened on the girl in furs who had entered what appeared to
be a living room to the right, and now, down on her knees beside a
couch, smiling and talking confidentially and quite happily to herself,
was placing her dolls in a row against