Lynn did not come that night until she had turned and tossed through more than one sleepless hour. At breakfast the next morning they had little to say to one another. It was nearly always so now, although Lynn had scarcely noted the fact that all ease and confidence had gone out of their companionship. He was always in haste of late to get away; every morning he went earlier to join Doris, forgetting all about the law books which lay on the table in his room, and which his grandmother used to go and look at and turn over--most piteously. She now used rarely to stir from her chair except to do this. Every evening he was later in leaving Doris, and slower in coming home; and he never lingered now on the dark porch to think over his plans. And day by day old lady Gordon's secret wrath burned more fiercely, although she still kept it carefully covered with the ashes of assumed indifference. But on the evening of the judge's visit her long-smouldering anger had, for the first time, burst into flame beyond her control. She had seen Lynn and Doris passing on their way to the graveyard; she had watched the flutter of the girl's white skirt at her grandson's side all along the slow, winding way up to the high hilltop. The sight had been as wind and fuel to raging fire. It was well for the judge that he had not lingered while the flames thus raged; it was well for Lynn that he had been for the moment beyond the reach of his grandmother's burning contempt; it was well for Doris--though as innocent of all offence as one of the white lambs feeding on the hillside--well that her return was unseen in the gloaming; it had been well--most of all--for this fierce old spirit itself that certain strong, dark drops, from the bag hanging at the head of her bed, could lay for a few hours the mocking ghosts of dead hopes, all slain by folly and weakness, even as this last one seemed now being put to death before her very eyes. The morning found her spent in strength; and the fire of her anger, although uncooled, was again covered by the silence of exhaustion. Moods of silence were, however, not unusual with her, and Lynn was too deeply absorbed in his own pleasant thoughts to observe his grandmother's ominous brooding. When the meal was over, with the exchange of hardly a dozen thoughtless words upon his part, and of taciturn responses upon her side, Lynn took up his hat and went out of the house and toward the gate. Pausing under the cypress tree, he looked back and smiled and waved his hand; and then he went swiftly along the big road toward the silver poplars.