o this he asked Uncle Peter what the chances were of a cold
spell.

"There was a time"--Peter sniffed the air. He was husking golden corn
by the kitchen fire--"when I could calculate about the weather, but
since the weather man has got to meddling he's messed things
considerable. He's put in the Middle States, and what-not, until it's
like doing subtraction and division--and by that time the change of
weather is on you."

Northrup laughed.

"Well," he said, getting up and stretching, "I think I'll take a turn
before I go to bed. Bank the fire, Uncle Peter; I may prowl late."

Heathcote asked no questions, but those prowls of Northrup's were
putting his simple faith to severe tests. Peter was above gossip, but
when it swirled too near him he was bound to watch out.

"All right, son," he muttered, and ran his hand through his bristling
hair.

The night was a dark one. A soft darkness it was, that held no wind
and only a hint of frost. Stepping quickly along the edge of the lake,
Northrup felt that he was being absorbed by the still shadows and the
sensation pleased and comforted him. He was not aware of thought, but
thought was taking him into control, as the night was. There would be
moments of seeming blank and then a conclusion! A vivid, final
conclusion. Of course Mary-Clare occupied these moments of seeming
mental inaction. Northrup now wanted to set her free from--what?

"That young beast of a husband!" So much for that conclusion. If the
end had come between him and Mary-Clare, Northrup wondered if he could
free her from Rivers.

"What for?"

This brought a hurtling mass of conclusions.

"No man has a right to get a stranglehold on a woman. If she has, as
the old darkey said, lost her taste for him, why in thunder should he
want to cram himself down her throat?"

This was more common sense than moral or legal, and Northrup bent his
head and plunged along. He walked on, believing that he was master of
his soul and his actions at last, while, in reality, he was but part
of the Scheme of Things and was acting under orders.

Presently, he imagined that he had decided all along to go to the
Point and have a talk with Twombley. So he kept straight ahead.

Twombley delighted his idle hours. The man, apparently, never went to
bed until daylight, and his quaint unmorality was as diverting as that
of an impish boy.

"Now, sir," he had confided to Northrup at a recent meeting, "there's
Peneluna Sniff. Good