My ambition in the future will be to live long and die poor. I hope the Devil is satisfied. He has been after me a long while, and I have passed into his possession body and soul. But I must return home,” he said, as if remembering the hour. “Mateel does not know where I am, though I suspect she does not care, and is soundly sleeping.” “How are you going?” I asked, as he got up, and began buttoning his great coat around him. “As I came--on foot.” He started to walk past me, and would have gone away had I not held him back. “To-morrow is Saturday, and New Year,” I said. “It is a holiday, and I will go with you. Wait here until I come back.” He consented without a word, and sat down, and I think did not change his position until I came back with the horses. It was an hour after midnight, and the cold was intense--a miserable night for such a ride, but I willingly undertook it, knowing it was a kindness to Jo, and that we could easily make the distance in an hour. When I told my mother that I was going to Fairview, she was not surprised, nor did she ask me any questions, and I was soon on the way, with Jo by my side. When we drove up to the house at the mill, which we did after a cold ride without speaking a word, I saw a curtain pulled aside in a room where there was a light, and Mateel’s pale and frightened face peering out, but by the time she appeared at the door, and opened it, we had passed on to the stables, and were putting away the horses. I was chilled through with cold, but when we walked back toward the house, I am certain I shivered because I dreaded to see them meet, knowing how unhappy and how helpless both were. I opened the door, and we walked in together, Jo a little behind me, and we went direct to the fire, though I stopped and held out my hand to his frightened wife. She was very pale, and I knew she had been weeping, for her eyes were red and swollen. While she took my hat and coat, Jo took off his, and held his hands out to the fire as he had done when he came to see me in town. He had taken a hasty glance at his wife, and I thought her distress added to his own, as though now both were wretched, and nobody to blame for it. “Jo, my husband,” she said, in a piteous, hesitating tone, and almost crying, “what has happened? You look so strange. I have been walking the floor since eight o’clock waiting for you. Is there anything the matter?” As Jo did not reply, she looked at me for an answer, and I said he had business in town which occupied him until late; and that, knowing she would be worried, I had brought him home. But this did not satisfy her, and walking over to Jo, she stood beside him. “Why don’t you speak to me? You have never treated me this way before.” As she stood trembling beside him, I thought that surely Jo’s letter was a forgery, and that if she did not love her husband, a woman never did. Looking up at her as though half ashamed, Jo said:--