He quickened his steps and stumbled all at once into the little clearing that held the new-made grave and Jessica's statue. The sight terrified his intoxicated imagination. His hair rose. The name on the headstone was STIRES, and there was himself--no, a ghost of himself!--sitting near! He turned and broke into a run down the steep slope. In his fear--for he imagined the white figure was pursuing him--he tripped and fell, regained his feet, rushed across the level space, threw his weight against the cabin door, and burst into the room. A dog sprang up with a growl, and in the light of the fire that burned on the hearth, a man sitting at the rough-hewn table lifted a haggard face from his arms and each recognized the other. The ghost was gone now before firelight and human presence, and Hugh, with a loud laugh of tipsy incredulity, stood staring at the man before him. "Harry Sanderson!" he cried. "By the great horn spoon!" His shifty eyes surveyed the other's figure--the corduroys, the high laced boots, the soft blue flannel shirt. "Not exactly in purple and fine linen," he said--the impudent swagger of intoxication had slipped over him again, and his boisterous laugh broke with a hiccough. "I thought the gospel game was about played out that night in the chapel. And now you are willing to take a hint from the prodigal. How did you find my nest? And perhaps you can tell me who has been making himself so infernally at home here lately?" "_I_ have," said Harry evenly. Hugh's glance, that had been wavering about the neat interior, returned to Harry, and knowledge and anger leaped into it. "So it was you, was it? You are the one who has been trying his hand as a claim-jumper!" He lurched toward the table and leaned upon it. "I've always heard that the devil took care of his own. The runaway rector stumbles on my manor, and with his usual luck--'Satan's luck' we called it at college--steps in just in time to strike it rich!" He stretched his hand suddenly and caught a tiny object that glittered against Harry's coat--the little gold cross, which the other had tied to his watch-guard. The thong snapped and Hugh sent the pendant rattling across the doorway. "You were something of a howling swell as a parson," he said insolently, "but you don't need the jewelry now!"