"No, only an old friend of mine whom I have not seen for some time. I'm sorry it caused you such a fright." "That doesn't matter." Mary rose, her eyes on the door leading to the veranda. She stood as if listening. The alternate mumbling of two masculine voices came in on the sultry air. She sighed, looked down at Charles, and he saw that the light of relief which had illumined her face had already died down. "That is out of the way," she whispered, as if to herself in part, "but something almost as bad has come." "You mean--?" He stood up to keep her company, and saw her sweep her eyes furtively toward the door again. She nodded as if he had finished a remark that she fully understood. "Albert says that the doctors held another consultation just before he left Carlin this afternoon. They decided that Tobe must be removed to-morrow night at the latest. He came to tell me and to drive me to town with him in the morning." "And you are going to--allow _him_ to furnish the money?" She nodded again, her face averted. "I've tried everywhere, and so has father. This is no time for sentiment. I shall do my duty." There was a sound of steps approaching through the hall. There was no mistaking that careless, blustering stride. With a startled, almost frightened expression, Mary whirled toward the kitchen and disappeared just as Frazier entered the sitting-room. An instant later and Frazier would have seen the two together. "I was looking for Miss Mary," he said, and he glowered on Charles, who had resumed his chair and taken up his knife and fork. Charles thought with lightning swiftness. He did not want to give the man the slightest information, so with a steady, contemptuous stare he simply made no answer. His manner and silence fairly stunned Frazier, who, in default of anything else to do, simply glared at him for a moment and then turned back toward the veranda. Charles was glad he had taken the course he did, the next moment, for he heard Mary's voice on the veranda speaking to her father. She had slipped out at the kitchen door and had hastily made her way over the grass back to the front. Charles finished his supper and, having nothing just then to do, he started up to his room. He intended to go to the village as soon as he could leave the house unnoticed, and that meant waiting till the family and the guest had retired. As he was ascending the stairs he heard the angry voice of Frazier raised above a normal tone. "He simply glared at me when I spoke, sneered and didn't open his lips. Now I tell you that if it hadn't been here in your house, Mr. Rowland, I'd have given him a licking that he would remember all his life--a common, roustabout circus tramp acting in such a high and mighty way with me!"