She was always before me,—the charmed spirit of youth, linked to every foot of the earth, every gleam of the sun upon the ice-bound lake, every glory of the winter sunset. All the good impulses I had ever stifled were quickened to life by the thought of her. Amid the day’s perplexities I started sometimes, thinking I heard her voice, her girlish laughter, or saw her again coming toward me down the stairs, or holding against the light her fan with its golden butterflies. I really knew so little of her; I could associate her with no home, only with that last fling of the autumn upon the lake, the snow-driven woodland, that twilight hour at the organ in the chapel, those stolen moments at the Armstrongs’. I resented the pressure of the hour’s affairs, and chafed at the necessity for talking of my perplexities with the good friends who were there to help. I wished to be alone, to yield to the sweet mood that the thought of her brought me. The doubt that crept through my mind as to any possibility of connivance between her and Pickering was as vague and fleeting as the shadow of a swallow’s wing on a sunny meadow.

“You don’t intend fighting the fact of your absence, do you ?” demanded Larry, after a long silence.

“Of course not !” I replied quietly. “Pickering was right on my heels, and my absence was known to his men here. And it would not be square to my grandfather,—who never harmed a flea, may his soul rest in blessed peace !—to lie about it. They might nail me for perjury besides.”

“Then the quicker we get ready for a siege the better. As I understand your attitude, you don’t propose to move out until you’ve found where the siller’s hidden Being a gallant gentleman and of a forgiving nature, you want to be sure that the lady who is now entitled to it gets all there is coming to her, and as you don’t trust the executor, any further than a true Irishman trusts a British prime minister’s promise, you’re going to stand by to watch the boodle counted. Is that a correct analysis of your intentions ?”

“That’s as near one of my ideas as you’re likely to get, Larry Donovan !”

“And if he comes with the authorities,—the sheriff and that sort of thing,—we must prepare for such an emergency, interposed the chaplain.”

“So much the worse for the sheriff and the rest of them !” I declared.

“Spoken like a man of spirit. And now we’d better stock up at once, in case we should be shut off from our source of supplies. This is a lonely place here; even the school is a remote neighbor. Better let Bates raid the village shops to-morrow. I’ve tried being hungry, and I don’t care to repeat the experience.”