ALL that afternoon and well into the evening, Darcy Cole, at the Farmhouse, sat and wrote and wrote and wrote.

All that afternoon and well into the evening, Jack Remsen, at the Bungalow, sat and smoked and mused and let his pipe go out and relighted it and mused again.

All that afternoon and well into the evening, the four amateur sleuths at the Lodge waited for a reply from Washington which didn't come.

At a point a mile or so above these human processes a large, cold cloud sprung a million leaks and sifted down a considerable quantity of large, soft snowflakes, and continued so to do until the air was darkened and the earth whitened with them.

Through this curtain, after a time, frightened but determined, tramped Darcy Cole. Through this curtain tramped also Jack Remsen, deep in such trouble of heart as he had never known before, and most undetermined. Both were headed for the same spot, the mailbox at the entrance from the main road to the byway which leads up to the Bungalow.

Having started considerably earlier than Jack, Darcy got there first. She opened the box, dropped in her note, and proceeded to another mail-box some distance along the road and opposite the Island, where she deposited a second epistle. That left her two and a half hours in which to make the ten miles of dark, heavy road to Meredith. If it were too little, she had learned of a trail through meadowland and forest which would cut off nearly two miles. Darcy didn't like woods at night—most of us don't, if we're honest with ourselves—but she proposed to catch that train.

Now, an all-wise government has ordained that upon rural delivery boxes there shall be a metal flag which works automatically with the raising and the lowering of the lid. Upon reaching the Bungalow box, shortly after the wayfarer from the Farmhouse had passed, Jack Remsen observed with surprise that the flag, which he knew to have been down, was raised.

“How's this?” inquired the wayfarer, addressing the box. “I've been here and got the noon delivery, and the postman comes only once a day. Yet you're flying signals.”

As the box did not respond, Remsen opened it and felt inside. Darcy's note rewarded his explorations. By the light of successive matches and at the cost of scorched fingers, he read it:

Good-bye, Knight. Your service is over. It has been an ungrateful one. But I am more grateful than I can say. You must not go. You must stay. I have written to Helen—she is the kind one—and told her about it; just how I dragged you into it to take the real Sir Montrose's place. I had to tell her who you were. But your secret won't be betrayed. So you won't have to go away. You'll be safe here. I'm glad. I like to think of you here. It's been good—hasn't it? Perhaps when you are able to come back to New York I'll see you at Gloria's some time.

I can't say a millionth part of what I want to. I couldn't even if there were time. You've been so good to me—so good. And all you've had for it is trouble. I'm sorry.

Good-night, Knight. D. C.

“Even if there were time.” As has been indicated, Jack Remsen's mind could, on occasion, work swiftly.

Time for what? Why should she be pressed for time? Obviously, because she was going away. And she would leave that note only just before her departure. That could mean only the eleven o'clock train from Meredith: the train he had intended taking before she asked him to postpone his departure until the morrow. Of course; so that he should get her note! On her way to the station she would leave the explanatory and damnatory letter for Helen Wood at the Island. Well, it would be a long time before that letter reached its addressee!

Examination of the blanketed ground confirmed his reasoning. There were the small, clear-set footprints, infinitely pathetic in the black wildness of the night. As he well knew from experience, catching up with Darcy Cole when she was set on getting somewhere was a job for the undivided attention of the briskest pedestrian. He set out along the road at a dogtrot.

His first stop was for the purpose of committing a felony, punishable by several years in the Federal penitentiary. It took him about a second to complete the crime, and, as he left the rifled mail-box behind, his inside pocket quite bulged with the fat letter wherein Darcy had set forth her circumstantial but by no means complete confession which was to exculpate her partner and inculpate herself. Remsen's heart beat a little faster under that bulky epistle with its contents of courage and self-sacrifice.

At the door of a late-autumnal cottage he borrowed a flash. With this he could plainly discern the trail of the little feet, blurred but not obliterated by the snowfall. His watch indicated a quarter after nine. He jogged on with high hopes.

On a long, straight, level stretch he let himself out for a burst of speed. Perhaps, from the summit of the hill in which it terminated, he might catch a glimpse of her, for the moon was now trying its best to send a struggling ray through the flying wrack of cloud. Tenderly he pictured to himself the vision of her; head up to the storm, the strong, lithe shoulders squared, skimming with that easy, effortless pace of hers that had in it all the grace of perfectly controlled vigor.

Halfway across the open space he slackened up to cast the light of the flash on the road.

No footmarks were visible.

Remsen cried out, with the shock of his dismay. He cast about him on all sides. No result.

Struggling to keep cool, he turned back, going slowly, careful to miss no trace which intent scrutiny might discover. A quarter of a mile back he picked up the trail where she had left the road to cross a brooklet and take to the open fields. Her object he guessed; to cut across a broad and heavily wooded hill, thus saving herself some two miles of travel where the road took a wide double curve.

Eased in his breathing by the enforced slowness of the search, he was now able to accelerate his pace. Halfway up the open hillside a sudden fury of storm descended, lapping him in whirling darkness. Ahead of him stretched the dead-black line of woodland. More by luck than direction, he came upon a gateway, and thus set foot to the forest path, less difficult to discern in such conditions than the open trail of the meadows. With his light he could follow it quite easily. But when he thought of Darcy, lightless and inexperienced in woodcraft, with only her strength and her courage to help her, wandering in that wilderness, his spirit sickened with terror. The numbed fingers of the hand which gripped the flash warned him of dropping temperature. One might easily freeze on such a night, in the open. Worst of all, the marks in the snow were now all but invisible under the fresh fall.

He blundered desperately onward, shouting her name into the gale as he went. There was an answering call. He threw his light on. She rose from a fallen tree-trunk into the arc of radiance.

“I've been lost,” she said, and walked straight to his arms.

Just for the comfort and safety and relief of it she clung to him, with no other or further thought than that where he was no harm could reach her. But now that she was found, Remsen's self-control broke under the reaction. His arms closed about her. With a shock of sweetness, amazement, and terror she felt his lips on hers—and answered them. For the briefest instant only. The thought of Gloria pierced through the rapture of the moment, a poisoned dart. She thrust herself back from him, her hands on his breast.

“Go away!” she sobbed. “You've no right. You know you've no right!”

As she had thought of Gloria, so now he thought of the Briton oversea, fighting in his country's service.

“I know,” he groaned. “Forgive me.”

She stood back from him, staring with bewildered, dismayed eyes.

“I forgot for the moment that I'm only a counterfeit,” he pleaded.

“You forgot—many things,” said she slowly.

“Forgive me, Darcy,” he said again. “It—it swept me off my feet—the sweetness of it. It was base—dishonorable—anything you want to call it; but when I felt you in my arms—”

“Oh, don't!” she wailed.

“Will it make it better or worse if I tell you that I love you as I never loved or thought I could love any woman?”

“Worse! Worse! Infinitely worse!”

“This is the end of me,” he said. He spoke quietly and in a flat, even tone as a man might speak who knew that he was giving up everything in life worth having. “I'll not offend again. But—after I'd kissed you—you had to know. I couldn't let you think it anything less than it was, the going out to you of a heart that I could no longer control.”

“In dishonor!”

“If you will have it so. The dishonor is mine. You are untouched by it.... Now, let us get to other matters. Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Then you can follow me back?” he said. “Where?”

“To the Farmhouse.”

“I'll never go back to the Farmhouse.”

“You must. I'm going away on this train.”

“What good would that do? Haven't you read my note to you?”

“Of course. Otherwise I shouldn't have got on your trail.”

“Then you must know that I've written the whole thing to Helen Wood, and even if I wanted to go back, now—”

“Dismiss that letter from your mind. I got it, on my way here.”

“You took my letter to Helen? Did you read it?”

“Do you think me dishonorable in everything?” he returned quietly.

“Oh, I'm sorry!” cried the girl impetuously. “I don't think you dishonorable. I know you're not. I don't know what to think or do.”

“Take this light and hurry back to the Farmhouse. I've still got time for the train. Or I'll take you back and make the morning train.”

“One thing I cannot and will not do: spend another night at the Farm.”

“Is that your last word?”

“Yes.” Obstinacy itself was in the monosyllable.

“Then I'll go with you to Meredith.”

“I won't let you.”

“I'll go,” he retorted in a tone which ended that discussion.

Under his guidance and in silence they regained the main road. At Center Harbor he succeeded in getting a team to take them the rest of the way. Not until the end of the journey did Darcy speak to him.

“What shall you do now?”

“I don't know. Go somewhere,” said he gloomily.

“You must go back.”

“Boulder Brook—without you?” he said passionately.

“But where else can you go?”

“It doesn't matter.”

They stood in silence until her train pulled in.

“I shan't see you again, shall I?” he said wretchedly.

“You've made it impossible. Oh, why did you do it?” she wailed softly.

With no further word she turned from him and went into the car. Remsen stood, dazed with misery. Forward, something was shunted from an express car with a heavy crash. There was a babel of voices, a moment's delay. Darcy flashed out upon the steps again, her eyes starry. Remsen jumped to meet her. She caught his hands in hers with a swift, forgiving little pressure.

“I couldn't leave you so,” she said tremulously. “You've been too good to me. Good-bye, and—forget.”

Before he could answer she was gone again.

Until the tail-light of the train glimmered into obscurity around the curve, Remsen stood uncovered in the gale. Then he turned to the miles of lonely road.