The vehicle drew up at last before one of the most pretentious residences, a massive pile of stone and brick fronting the Lake with what seemed to him a singularly proud and chilling aspect. His hand shook as he paid the driver, and it was a very pale though very erect young man who mounted the stone steps to the bell. Despite the stiffness with which he held himself, he felt the muscles at his knees trembling weakly, while his lungs did not seem to fill, even when he inhaled deeply. During the moments that he waited he found his body pulsating to the slow, heavy thumping of his heart; then a familiar face greeted him. "How do you do, Hawkins," he heard himself saying, as a liveried old man ushered him in and took his coat. "Don't you remember me?" "Yes, sir! Mr. Emerson. You have been away for a long time, sir." "Is Miss Wayland in?" "Yes, sir; she is expecting you. This way, please." Boyd followed, thankful for the subdued light which might conceal his agitation. He knew where they were going: she had always awaited him in the library, so it seemed. And how well he remembered that wonderful book walled room! It was like her to welcome him on the spot where she had bade him good-bye three years ago. Hawkins held the portieres aside and Boyd heard their velvet swish at his back, yet for the briefest instant he did not see her, so motionless did she stand. Then he cried, softly: "My Lady!" and strode forward. "Boyd! Boyd!" she answered and came to meet him, yielding herself to his arms. She felt his heart pounding against hers like the heart of a runner who has spent himself at the tape, felt his arms quivering as if from great fatigue. For a long time neither spoke. CHAPTER IX AND IS GRANTED A YEAR OF GRACE "And so all your privations and hardships went for nothing," said Mildred Wayland, when Boyd had recounted the history of his pilgrimage into the North. "Yes," he replied; "as a miner, I am a very wretched failure." She shrugged her shoulders in disapproval. "Don't use that term!" she cried. "There is no word so hateful to me as 'failure'--I suppose, because father has never failed in anything. Let us say that your success has been delayed." "Very well. That suits me better, also, but you see I've forgotten how to choose nice words." They were seated in the library, where for two hours they had remained undisturbed, Emerson talking rapidly, almost incoherently, as if this were a sort of confessional, the girl hanging eagerly upon his every word, following his narrative with breathless interest. The story had been substantially the same as that which, once before, he had related to Cherry Malotte; but now the facts were deeply, intimately colored with all the young man's natural enthusiasm and inmost personal feeling. To his listener it was like some wonderful, far-off romance, having to do with strange people whose motives she could scarcely grasp and pitched amid wild scenes that she could not fully picture.