Since all things mundane must have an end, the old butler with the white-fringed head came at last to show him the way to his luxurious lodgings on the second floor of the mansion. With a touch of hospitality which carried Blount back to his one winter in the South, the hostess went with him as far as the stair-foot, and her "Good-night" was still ringing musically in his ears when the old negro lighted the candles in the guest-room, put another stick of wood on the small fire that was crackling and snapping cheerfully on the hearth, and bobbed and bowed his way to the door. Blount saw his last chance for better information vanishing for the night, and once more broke with the traditions. "Uncle Barnabas, before you go, suppose you tell me where I am," he suggested. "Whose house is this?" The old man stopped on the threshold, chuckling gleefully. "A-ain't you know dat, sah?--a-ain't de mistis done tell you dat? You's at Wa'trace Hall--Mahsteh Majah's new country-house; yes, sah; dat's whah you is--kee-hee!" "And who is 'Master Major'?" pressed Blount, whose bewilderment grew with every fresh attempt to dispel it. "A-ain't she tell you dat?--kee-hee! Ev'body knows Mahsteh Majah; yes, sah. If de mistis ain't tell you, ol' Barnabas ain't gwine to--no, sah. Ah'll bring yo'-all's coffee in de mawnin'; yes, sah--good-night, sah--kee-hee!" And the door closed silently upon the wrinkled old face and the bobbing head. Having nothing else to do, Blount went to bed, but sleep came reluctantly. Life is said to be full of paper walls thinly dividing the commonplace from the amazing; and he decided that he had surely burst through one of them when he had given place to the vagrant impulse prompting him to go horseback-riding when he should have gone comfortably to bed in his sleeper to wait for the track-clearing. Whither had a curiously bizarre fate led him? Where was "Wartrace Hall," and who was "Mahsteh Majah"? Who was the winsome little lady who looked as if she might be twenty, and had all the wit and wisdom of the ages at her tongue's end--who had held him so nearly spellbound over the teacups that he had entirely lost sight of everything but his hospitable welcome? These and kindred speculations kept him awake for a long time after the door had closed behind the ancient negro; and he was just dropping off into his first loss of consciousness when the familiar purring of a motor-car aroused him. There was a window at his bed's head, and he reached over and drew the curtain. The view gave upon the avenue of cottonwoods and the circular carriage approach. A touring-car, with its powerful head-lights paling the white radiance of the moon, was drawn up at the steps, and he had a glimpse of a big man, swathed from head to heel in a dust-coat, descending from the tonneau.