[Illustration: _He attacked it in vain with his fists._] Bert waited to hear no more. Unreasoning fear came to him that something was very much amiss up there at the big house, and he started the flivver with a thunderous barrage of its exhaust. The words of Joan's note were vivid in his mind: "Come to me, Bert, at the Carmody place in Lenville. Believe me, I need you." Only that, but it had been sufficient to bring young Redmond across three states to this measly town that wasn't even on the road maps. Bert yanked the bouncing car into the winding road that led up the hill, and thought grimly of the quarrel with Joan two years before. He had told her then, arrogantly, that she'd need him some day. But now that his words had proved true the fact brought him no consolation nor the slightest elation. Joan was there in this lonely spot, and she did need him. That was enough. He ran nervous fingers through his already tousled mop of sandy hair--a habit he had when disturbed--and nearly wrecked the car on a gray boulder that encroached on one of the two ruts which, together, had been termed a road. Stupid, that quarrel of theirs. And how stubborn both had been! Joan had insisted on going to the big city to follow the career her brother had chosen for her. Chemistry, biology, laboratory work! Bert sniffed, even now. But he had been equally stubborn in his insistence that she marry him instead and settle down on the middle-Western fruit farm. With a sudden twist, the road turned in at the entrance of a sadly neglected estate. The grounds of the place were overrun with rank growths and the driveway was covered with weeds. The tumble-down gables of a descrepit frame house peeped out through the trees. It was a rambling old building that once had been a mansion--the "big house" of the natives. A musty air of decay was upon it, and crazily askew window shutters proclaimed deep-shrouded mystery within. Bert drew up at the rickety porch and stopped the flivver with its usual shuddering jerk. * * * * * As if his coming had been watched for through the stained glass of its windows, the door was flung violently open. A white-clad figure darted across the porch, but not before Bert had untangled the lean six feet of him from under the flivver's wheel and bounded up the steps. "Joan!" "Bert! I--I'm sorry." "Me too." Swallowing hard, Bert Redmond held her close. "But I won't go back to Indiana!" The girl raised her chin and the old defiance was in her tearful gaze. Bert stared. Joan was white and wan, a mere shadow of her old self. And she was trembling, hysterical. "That's all right," he whispered. "But tell me now, what is it? What's wrong?" With sudden vigor she was drawing him into the house. "It's Tom," she quavered. "I can't do a thing with him; can't get him to leave here. And something terrible is about to happen, I know. I thought perhaps you could help, even if--"