With jubilant step he crossed to the window and looked out. A slender arc of silver hung above the trees, bathing the fields in mystic splendor. It was not late. Only the maelstrom of torture through which he had passed had transformed the minutes to hours, and the hours to years. Why, the evening was still young, young enough for him to go to Lucy and speak into her ear all the love that surged in his heart. They had been made for one another from the beginning. He would wed her, and the old homestead she venerated should be hers indeed. It was all very simple, now. With the abandon of a schoolboy he rushed downstairs, pausing only an instant to put his head in at the kitchen door and shout to Jane: "I'm goin' over to the Websters'. I may be late. Don't sit up for me." Then he was gone. Alone beneath the arching sky, his happiness mounted to the stars. How delicious was the freshness of the cool night air! How sweet the damp fragrance of the forest! The spires of the pines richly dark against the fading sky were already receding into the mists of twilight. He went along down the road, his swinging step light as the shimmer of a moonbeam across a spangled pool. The Webster house was in darkness. Nevertheless this discovery did not disconcert him, for frequently Lucy worked until dusk among her flowers, or lingered on the porch in the peace of the evening stillness. To-night, however, he failed to find her in either of her favorite haunts and, guided by the wailing music of a harmonica, he came at last upon Tony seated on an upturned barrel at the barn threshold, striving to banish his loneliness by breathing into the serenity of the twilight the refrain of "Home, Sweet Home." "Hi, Tony!" called Martin. "Do you know where Miss Lucy is?" "I don't, sir," replied the boy, rising. "She didn't 'xactly say where she was goin'." "I s'pose she's round the place somewhere." "Land, no, sir! Didn't she tell you? Why, she went away on the train this afternoon." "On the train?" Martin repeated automatically. "Yes, sir." "When is she comin' back?" "She ain't comin' back," announced the Portuguese. "She's goin' out West or somewheres to live." A quick shiver vibrated through Martin's body, arresting the beat of his pulse. Scarcely knowing what he did, he caught the lad roughly by the shoulder. "When did she go?" he demanded. "What time? What did she say?" Tony raised a frightened glance to his questioner's face. "She went this afternoon," gasped he, "about five o'clock it was. She took the Boston train. She said she guessed she'd go back out West 'cause she didn't want to stay here any more. She was afraid of ghosts." "Ghosts!" Tony nodded. "I'm to leave the key of the house at Mr. Benton's in the mornin' an' tell him everythin's cleaned up an' in order. An' Miss Lucy said I was to stay here an' go on with the work till you or somebody else told me to stop."