“Tell Farrell to come in here at once, Billings. And I’m much obliged for what you’ve told me. Oh, wait, Billings! Throw another log on the fire first. I don’t want it to go out; you and I have got lots to talk about to-night!” Farrell came speedily. “Do you know where Ellington, Massachusetts, is?” asked Ethan. “Yes, sir.” “How long a run is it?” Farrell produced a road map from his coat pocket and bent over it under the light. “Well, Mr. Parmley, I don’t know how the roads are now, sir, but supposing they’re in fair condition we’d ought to do it in about two and half hours.” “Then if we left here at seven in the morning we’d get to Ellington by noon?” “Couldn’t help it, sir, barring accidents.” “There mustn’t be any accidents,” answered Ethan, a bit unreasonably. “I’ll do my best, sir.” “Be ready to leave, then, promptly at seven!” “Very well, sir.” Farrell went out and as the door closed softly behind him Ethan, the photograph in his hands, threw himself into the chair before the fire and beamed blissfully at the flames. [Illustration] XIII. The library was filled with the pallid twilight of a rainy day. Since early morning the summit of Mount Tom, a dozen miles to the westward, had been enveloped in ponderous, leaden clouds, and for two hours past the storm, travelling along the Connecticut Valley, had been deluging the slopes with autumnal ferocity. [Illustration] Through the rain-drenched windows a cold white light entered, flooding the stack room with its iron tiers of slumbering volumes, and, here at the barrier-like counter, illumining faintly the rebellious brown hair of the girl who, with pen in hand, bent over the pile of catalogue cards. The library was very still, so still that the sibilation of the moving pen sounded portentously loud. Now and then the rustle of a turning leaf or the scraping of feet on the floor came from around the corner of the arched doorway where sat a solitary occupant of the reading room. Save for these two the library was deserted. The hands of the clock above the commemorative tablet pointed to a quarter past twelve and the stack-boy and the assistant librarian had both gone to their luncheons. A more prolonged scraping of feet, followed by the sound of a moving chair, caused the girl at the desk to raise her head and pause at her work. A little frown of annoyance gathered and then gave place to a smile of humorous resignation as footfalls sounded on the echoing silence. From the reading room emerged a tall, thin youth of about twenty, a youth with a pale, cadaverous face lighted by a pair of patient, contemplative brown eyes which looked strangely incongruous and out of place. He carried two books which he laid apologetically on the counter. “Excuse me, Miss Hoyt,” he said gently. “Yes, Mr. Winkley?” she asked, looking up. “I am very sorry to trouble you, but could you let me have Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy?” “Have――What did you say, please?” she asked startledly.