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The snow in the road was deep and uneven. He stumbled across ruts and sank into drifts, and the wind drove against him like a granite cliff. Now and then he stopped, gasping, as if an invisible hand had tightened an iron band about his body; then he started again, stiffening himself against the stealthy penetration of the cold. The snow continued to descend out of a pall of inscrutable darkness, and once or twice he paused, fearing he had missed the road to Northridge; but, seeing no sign of a turn, he ploughed on.

At last, feeling sure that he had walked for more than a mile, he halted and looked back. The act of turning brought immediate relief, first because it put his back to the wind, and then because, far down the road, it showed him the gleam of a lantern. A sleigh was coming–a sleigh that might perhaps give him a lift to the village! Fortified by the hope, he began to walk back toward the light. It came forward very slowly, with unaccountable sigsags and waverings; and even when he was within a few yards of it he could catch no sound of sleigh-bells. Then it paused and became stationary by the roadside, as though carried by a pedestrian who had stopped, exhausted by the cold. The thought made Faxon hasten on, and a moment later he was stooping over a motionless figure huddled against the snow-bank. The lantern had dropped from its bearer’s hand, and Faxon, fearfully raising it, threw its light into the face of Frank Rainer.

“Rainer! What on earth are you doing here?”

The boy smiled back through his pallour. “What are you, I’d like to know?” he retorted; and, scrambling to his feet with a clutch oh Faxon’s arm, he added gaily: “Well, I’ve run you down!”

Faxon stood confounded, his heart sinking. The lad’s face was grey.

“What madness–” he began.

“Yes, it is. What on earth did you do it for?”

“I? Do what?… Why I…. I was just taking a walk…. I often walk at night….”

Frank Rainer burst into a laugh. “On such nights? Then you hadn’t bolted?”

“Bolted?”

“Because I’d done something to offend you? My uncle thought you had.”

Faxon grasped his arm. “Did your uncle send you after me?”

“Well, he gave me an awful rowing for not going up to your room with you when you said you were ill. And when we found you’d gone we were frightened–and he was awfully upset–so I said I’d catch you…. You’re not ill, are you?”

“Ill? No. Never better.” Faxon picked up the lantern. “Come; let’s go back. It was awfully hot in that diningroom.”

“Yes; I hoped it was only that.”

They trudged on in silence for a few minutes; then Faxon questioned: “You’re not too done up?”

“Oh, no. It’s a lot easier with the wind behind us.”

“All right Don’t talk any more.”

They pushed ahead, walking, in spite of the light that guided them, more slowly than Faxon had walked alone into the gale. The fact of his companion’s stumbling against a drift gave Faxon a pretext for saying: “Take hold of my arm,” and Rainer obeying, gasped out: “I’m blown!”

“So am I. Who wouldn’t be?”

“What a dance you led me! If it hadn’t been for one of the servants happening to see you–“

“Yes; all right. And now, won’t you kindly shut up?”

Rainer laughed and hung on him. “Oh, the cold doesn’t hurt me….”

For the first few minutes after Rainer had overtaken him, anxiety for the lad had been Faxon’s only thought. But as each labouring step carried them nearer to the spot he had been fleeing, the reasons for his flight grew more ominous and more insistent. No, he was not ill, he was not distraught and deluded–he was the instrument singled out to warn and save; and here he was, irresistibly driven, dragging the victim back to his doom!

The intensity of the conviction had almost checked his steps. But what could he do or say? At all costs he must get Rainer out of the cold, into the house and into his bed. After that he would act.