There was more than a little satisfaction to be gained in viewing himself in that light. With less to occupy his mind and unlimited leisure for elaboration it could have served as the entire day's theme for thought. But so far as explaining his almost panic haste to get away the reasoning was palpably unsatisfactory--so unsatisfactory that he cringed guiltily behind the back of the seat in front of him whenever anyone entered the front door of the car. He gave quite the entire day to the problem and long before night hid the flying fences outside his window he decided that eventually there could be only one way out of it. Sooner or later he had to face the issue: he had to tell Young Denny that he had betrayed his trust. Even that damp wad of bills which the boy had pressed into his hand, that night before he left, still burned within his coat. Once or twice he rose, during the return journey and advanced with forced jauntiness as far as the door of the car ahead. But he always stopped there, after a moment's uneasy contemplation of Denny's back, turned a little sadly to the water-cooler, and returned slowly and unenthusiastically to his seat. Twice when it was necessary to change trains he made the transfer with a lightning precision that would have done honor to any prestidigitator. And when, hours after nightfall, the train came to a groaning standstill before Boltonwood's deserted station shed he waited his opportunity and dropped off in the dark--on the wrong side of the track! Denny had already become a dark blur ahead of him when he, too, turned in and took the long road toward town. Old Jerry followed the big-shouldered figure that night with heavily lagging feet--he followed heavy in spirit and bereft of hope. He was still behind him when Denny finally paused before the sagging gate of John Anderson's half-stripped house. Then, watching the boy's dumb lack of understanding, the enormity of the whole horrible complication dawned upon him for the first time. He had forgotten Dryad Anderson's going--forgotten that the house upon the ridge was no longer the property of the man who had entrusted it to him. When the light behind that half-drawn shade flared up, far across on the crest of the opposite hill, and Young Denny wheeled to plunge into the black mouth of the path that led deeper into the valley, he too started swiftly forward. He swept off in desperate haste up the long hill road that led to the Bolton homestead. The light was still there in that front room when he poked a tentatively inquiring head in at the open door; he paused in a dull-eyed examination of the silken garments draped over the table top in the kitchen after he had roamed vaguely through the silent house. But he was too tired in mind to give them much attention just then.