The spirit of unrest which Wanda had felt vaguely the night before did not depart with the passing of the darkness. Something was wrong, radically wrong at the Echo Creek ranch house. Since the unexpected home coming of Red Reckless there had been a subtle difference, a ruffling of the waters which usually ran so placidly at the country home, a darkening and disturbation of the surface which hinted at hidden whirlpools and cross currents. It was from the master of the household that the day took its colour. In his own room last night he had been restless, sleepless until very late. Mrs. Leland had heard him walking up and down, had heard the noise of his pipe against his tobacco jar many times after the hour when Martin was in the habit of having his last smoke. In the morning he was up and dressed before Julia had built her fire. All day he was strangely pre-occupied and silent. He seemed scarcely to notice Wanda when she came into the dining room to give him his good morning kiss. That was unlike him. Both women noticed it. After breakfast he did not go out. Instead he went immediately to his study, telling Julia sharply that she need not come in to sweep this morning as he was going to be busy. It was one of the few times he had spoken at all that morning, but not the first time he had spoken irritably. Mrs. Leland's eyes, following him were troubled. In his private room he sat long at his big oaken table, his brows drawn thoughtfully, his eyes narrowed in deep speculation. The tenseness of the man's still figure, the gleam of the darkening eyes, the obvious moody abstraction told that some vital question had come to him for its answer, that he was fighting it out sternly, that the issue was one of those great issues of life which come soon or late and which must be decided, yes or no, upon the battle ground of a man's soul. Three months ago he had done a thing from which, at first, his finer manhood had drawn back rebelliously. But--he had done it. There had been a struggle then between the two nicely balanced qualities which go to make up a human personality. The nice balance had been disturbed by clever generalship rather than by open battle. Specious reasoning, aided and abetted by the temptation of a rare opportunity, further reinforced by an emotion which was more or less selfish even while it masked itself as a public and private duty, had routed the sterner sense of justice of which the man was, not without reason, proud. He had in the end taken the step; being done it had since then been dismissed to a shadowy corner of his mind by his own strength of character; when he had thought of it had only grown stronger in his belief that he had done rightly. And now a man whom he had never expected to see again had come home; the question closed three months ago was still an open question.