weird sound like a wailing from the storm. Her pulses raced as she stood listening for it again. But she heard nothing more than the moaning about the old house and the swishing of the poplars and the pines. She walked to the hall door and opened it, straining her ears for sounds inside the house. She saw her supper on the hall table. She stole softly along as far as the bathroom. There was no light under the kitchen door. But there was a light under the door of the den.
She could see there was a fire by the ebb and flow of the light. There was no sound of any kind. She felt Dane was in there alone. He must have been listening to her playing. She felt a fierce impulse to open the door, to go in and see what he looked like, what he was doing. It seemed ridiculous that she could not. The first thing that restrained her was the thought that he might have fallen asleep, and not for worlds would she have disturbed him so. But she played with the impulse for some minutes. And then she hesitated, because whatever was going on in there was in a large sense his own affair, at least more his than hers, she felt. And that was the thought that turned her back.
She carried her supper tray into the study and sat down. Then she heard her name called again. She wondered if her nerves were playing tricks with her. But it seemed a clearer call. This time she acted without thought. She went straight to the door of the den, opened it, and went in, closing it at once behind her. What she had expected she did not know, but she stood with her heart beating furiously. She looked at once at the lounge placed in front of a fire that had been banked up to burn most of the night.
Stretched out on his back upon it, with his face turned to the ceiling, Dane lay in a curiously lifeless way, with
