There was a brief silence, broken by the muffled chanting in the chapel, and Mr. Herriott's hands were gripped so tight behind his head the nails were purple, but his face showed no emotion, and when he spoke his tone betrayed only quiet sympathy. "For many years I have associated her with a passage in Jeremiah: '_As a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her.'_' Poor little speckled bird, beating out her life. Battling alone against a host of hawks is dreary work." "I suppose you are going to Y----?" "No, I must get back home. I have been away too long. My poor faithful Susan is dead." "I hope you are tired of globe-trotting, and ready to anchor yourself at your own fireside." "As yet I have made no definite plans; have been considering two recent offers. One is the presidency of a great railroad system--a position I might possibly fit myself to occupy if I went into the machine shops and roundhouses and worked hard for the next five years. It happens that the shares and bonds of one short but very important line which my father practically owned when the middle West was comparatively undeveloped, have appreciated enormously, and now that road is the link absolutely necessary to the contemplated consolidation of a new route that will touch the Pacific. I cabled my refusal to sell out, and the next bait was the presidency. Mr. Stadmeyer and I have controlling interests and our views accord. Two days ago we had a meeting, at which I declined office, and we leased our road for thirty years. That relieved me from one horn of the dilemma; the other still threatens. A Polar expedition will be ready next year, and I have been asked to take a place aboard ship." "Noel, I beg of you, dismiss that thought. Of all scientific follies, that Pole-hunting mania is the wildest, the most indefensible. To add your bleaching bones to the cairns heaped on the eternal ice altar of Polar night is no ambition worthy of you. Don't think me childish, but the sight of you is such a comfort I could not bear to have you risk your life searching for mares' nests so far away." Mr. Herriott laughed--a genial, hearty, deep-chested sound rarely heard in cloisters.