Summer had waned from the coast and with it had passed the keenness of local interest in the strangest victim of Lonesome Cove. Even the indefatigable tongue of Elder Dennett had almost ceased to clack on the topic, by the fall of the first snow. Other subjects of absorbing interest supervened during the long winter: the wreck of the schooner yacht off Dead Men’s Eddy; the coming of the new Presbyterian minister at Martindale Center whose wife was reported to be a suffragette; the mysterious benefaction that had befallen old Mrs. Orcutt late in February, enabling her to leave her home next to Annalaka churchyard and take her asthma southward in search of a cure; the rumor that Hedgerow House was to be sold before summer. “And young Blair’s body along with it, I expect,” remarked the Elder malevolently. “Seems to me, if I was a millionaire like Alexander Blair, I wouldn’t sell my own flesh and blood, dead or alive.” Of Alexander Blair himself, nothing had been seen in the neighborhood since mid-July, nor of his daughter-in-law. Hedgerow House was in charge of Gansett Jim as caretaker. Professor Kent had left about the same time as the Blairs. But Francis Sedgwick had stuck to the Nook, studying first the cold grays and browns of November, and later the wonderful blazing whites and subtle blues of drift and shadow spread before him in winter’s endless panorama, with the same enthusiasm that he had devoted to October’s riot of color. Though the work prospered, the worker had paled. It was the opinion of Martindale Center and Annalaka alike that the “painter feller” was looking right peaky and piny, like one whose conscience ached. But Sedgwick had nothing worse than a heartache, and the fates were making medicine for that. Wind-borne on the blast of a mid-March gale, Chester Kent dropped down at the door of the Nook one wild afternoon, without warning. As always, he was impeccably clad, though his stout boots showed the usage of recent hard wear. Leaving Austin that morning, with his light valise slung to his shoulder, he had footed the fifteen miles of soggy earth to Sedgwick’s place, in a luxurious tussle against the wind. Throwing open the door, he called his friend’s name. Instantly the artist came loping down the stairs and had him by the shoulders. “I’ve got a caller up above,” he said after the usual greetings and questionings were over. “Yes? Have you gone in for local society?” “Not exactly local. It’s Alexander Blair.” “Hel-lo!” said Kent in surprise. “What brings him?” “Why, he came down to Hedgerow House to look after certain books and papers, and ran over here to make his _amende honorable_ in form. Chet, I hate being apologized to.” “Of course. Every one does. Nevertheless, it’s good exercise for Mr. A. Blair, Esquire. Brings into action some muscles of his soul that might otherwise have atrophied from disuse.”