Jim had no definite plan as he tramped down the road in the falling darkness. He felt uncertain and miserable as he speculated with regard to Lydia. She could not guess at half the unkind things people must be saying; but she would ask for the bread of sympathy and they would give her a stone. He wished he might carry her away, shielding her and comforting her against the storm. He knew he would willingly give his life to make her happier. Of course she did not care for him. How could she? Who was he—Jim Dodge—to aspire to a girl like Lydia?

The wind had risen again and was driving dark masses of cloud across the sky; in the west a sullen red flared up from behind the hills, touching the lower edges of the vaporous mountains with purple. In a small, clear space above the red hung the silver sickle of the new moon, and near it shone a single star.... Lydia was like that star, he told himself—as wonderful, as remote.

There were lights in the windows of Bolton House. Jim stopped and gazed at the yellow squares, something big and powerful rising within him. Then, yielding to a sudden impulse, he approached and looked in. In a great armchair before the blazing hearth sat, or rather crouched, Andrew Bolton. He was wearing a smoking-jacket of crimson velvet and a pipe hung from his nerveless fingers. Only the man's eyes appeared alive; they were fixed upon Lydia at the piano. She was playing some light tuneful melody, with a superabundance of trills and runs. Jim did not know Lydia played; and the knowledge of this trivial accomplishment seemed to put her still further beyond his reach. He did not know, either, that she had acquired her somewhat indifferent skill after long years of dull practice, and for the single purpose of diverting the man, who sat watching her with bright, furtive eyes.... Presently she arose from the piano and crossed the room to his side. She bent over him and kissed him on his bald forehead, her white hands clinging to his shoulders. Jim saw the man shake off those hands with a rough gesture; saw the grieved look on her face; saw the man follow her slight figure with his eyes, as she stooped under pretext of mending the fire. But he could not hear the words which passed between them.

“You pretend to love me,” Bolton was saying. “Why don't you do what I want you to?”

“If you'd like to go away from Brookville, father, I will go with you. You need me!”

“That's where you're dead wrong, my girl: I don't need you. What I do need is freedom! You stifle me with your fussy attentions. Give me some money; I'll go away and not bother you again.”

Whereat Lydia had cried out—a little hurt cry, which reached the ears of the watcher outside.

“Don't leave me, father! I have no on............