"I'll meet you then at the train, my boy, at 7.50. I've business in the city. I always put up at the Holcomb; look me up after you've seen Katharine." "Good night, Mr. Devant, and again thank you!" Devant walked with Thornly to the outer door, and then to the windswept piazza. "It's sharp to-night," he said; "I'll soon have to give up Bluff Head. Davy's Light has got it all its own way to-night, not a star or moon to rival its beauty. A time back I fancied one evening that the Light failed me. It was only for a few moments I imagined it, but it gave me quite a jog. I suppose it was the state of my nerves; one can rely upon Davy. He's a great philosopher in his way. His lamp is his duty; his lamp and that poor crippled wife of his who has just died. Davy is one of the few men I've met, Dick, who seems to have played the game fair and has never tried to comfort himself with the hope of going back. 'I'm ready for the next duty,' he said to me the other day with his old rugged face shining; 'there's always another duty ready at hand, when you drop one as finished.'" The master of Bluff Head watched the straight young figure fade into the night. Then he turned again to Davy's Light. "The weight of a dead duty," he muttered. "That's what anchors a man! It isn't in the order of things to trust a man with a new duty, when he failed with the last. There isn't any light to guide a man that's anchored by a dead duty." Then Devant went back into his lonely house and sat down before the dulling fire to think it out about Thornly. "He'll never go to any one but me, after he's seen Katharine," he thought. "He may not come to me. It all depends upon how deep the thing has gone, but, in case he needs any one, I'd better be on hand. I may serve as a buffer, and that's better than not serving at all." CHAPTER X Janet had conquered the art of crocheting in order that she might construct a Tam o' Shanter cap. It had been a difficult task, and the result was far from satisfying. Dropped stitches and uneven rows were in evidence all over the creation of dark red, with its bushy little knot on top. But Janet had an eye for the impressionistic touch, and as she glanced in the mirror of Susan Jane's bureau, the general effect was gratifying. Under the dull red the splendid, dusky gold of the girl's hair shone exquisitely. Janet had trained the rebellious locks at last to an upward tendency and the mass was knotted loosely beneath the artistic headgear. The eye for color had never been lacking in this girl of the dunes. Nature had taught her true, but Thornly had, later, assisted Nature; and no French modiste could more accurately have chosen the shade of reddish brown to suit the complexion than had Janet selected, from the village store, her coarse flannel for blouse and skirt. The skirt was long now, and the heavy shoes were worn religiously through heat and cold. There was to be no more absolute freedom for Janet of the Dunes.