“No; it was too dark and raining too hard. I thought at first perhaps it was you with someone you knew and had happened to walk along with. I went to the front door and opened it, but I could only make out that they seemed to be talking and gesturing a good deal, and I thought I recognized your cousin Fred Oliphant’s voice. I waited, with the door open, but they didn’t come in, and pretty soon they went on. I called, ‘Dan! Oh, Dan!’ but the wind was blowing so I don’t suppose they heard me. Then I thought I saw the same two going up the Shelbys’ walk to the front veranda. They must have gone in, because a minute or so afterwards the downstairs windows over there were lighted up. Couldn’t you make some excuse to go over and see if it’s Dan?” Harlan jumped up from his chair by the fire. “It just _might_ be Dan,” he said, frowning. “I don’t think so, but——” “I’m _so_ afraid it is!” Mrs. Oliphant exclaimed. “I don’t like to bother you, and it may be a little awkward for you, going in so late, but you can surely think of some reasonable excuse, if it _isn’t_ Dan. If it is, do get him away as quickly as you can; I’d be terribly upset to have him make an exhibition of himself before Martha—she’s always had such a high opinion of him.” “Yes, she has!” Harlan interrupted dryly, as he strode out into the hall; and he added: “I don’t suppose Lena’d be _too_ pleased!” “She’d be furious,” his mother lamented in a whisper. She helped him to put on his wet waterproof coat, and continued her whisper. “She’s never been able to like poor Martha, and if she heard he went there to-night when she’s still so sick, she—she——” “Yes, she would!” Harlan said grimly, finishing the thought for her. “You might as well go to bed now, mother.” “No, no,” she said. “If it is Dan, I won’t let him see me when you get back, but I just want to know he’s safely in. And try to—try to——” “Try to what, mother?” he asked, pausing with the door open. “Try to explain it a little to Martha. She’s always been such a good friend of his, and he needs friends. Try to keep her from losing her high opinion of him. She’s always——” “She has indeed!” Harlan returned with a wry smile. “I’ll do what I can.” And he closed the door behind him as gently as he could, against the turbulent wind. CHAPTER XIV ADMITTED by a coloured housemaid who drowsily said, “Yes’m, she still up,” in response to his inquiry, Harlan had only to step into the Shelbys’ marble-floored “front hall” to dispel his slight doubts concerning the identity of Martha’s callers; his brother was unquestionably one of them.