“I will join Arthur at Weir Lake. True, that girl is there; but what of that? Her father is in California, they say, so he will not be there to trouble my peace. Why should he trouble it anyway? He is nothing to me, less than nothing. I hate him. I suppose that woman who was with them abroad, that beautiful, blue-eyed actress, means to marry him in the end. That is why she clings so close to the daughter. Time was when he cared nothing for these vivacious blondes, and adored dark eyes as if he saw heaven reflected in them. That is all past now. He knows the devil that lurks in a woman wronged. Yes--yes, I will join Arthur. I ought to see about the rebuilding of the old home myself.” She strained her eyes through the murky rain toward the gate at a man who was striding along under an umbrella with a free, swinging gait too fatally familiar to her memory. She pressed her hand to her throbbing heart. “It is _he_! He has come back to see that old woman, his sister! How the old feelings stir in me at sight of him again. I wonder if--if--there was the least truth in his words that I had wronged him. His anger was most bitter and unforgiving. Yes--yes, I will leave here to-morrow. I can not breathe the same air with him!” It was indeed Everard Dawn passing the gates of Idlewild without a glance at the windows where those anguished dark eyes watched him so eagerly between the blur of rain and mist. He was coming, as before, in storm and gloom, to his sister’s home. An impulse of tenderness had moved him to turn aside on his way to his daughter, to visit the lonely old woman. “It is well you came, for she is ill, and a week ago I hardly thought she would live till your return,” grumbled Rachel Dane, as she admitted him into the narrow hall. “You should have telegraphed me,” he answered. “She would not allow it. She said no one cared whether an old woman like her lived or died.” “She is mistaken. I have neglected her in my selfishness, but I love her dearly,” he said, huskily, adding: “And as for you, Rachel Dane, the sight of you stirs up unpleasant memories, but I hope I see you well?” “Well and hearty, sir, thanks to you for saving my life that night, and to your sister for giving me a home afterward. But I have tried to repay it by faithful service,” she added, as she ushered him into the lonely sitting-room, and stirred the fire into a brighter blaze. “I thank you for that. She must have had a lonely life since I took my daughter away,” he replied throwing himself in a chair, and stretching his feet to the grateful warmth. “My daughter! My daughter!” thought Rachel Dane, grimly. “How he would hate me if he knew the truth! And I should never dare to tell him! No, no; I don’t care to be bundled out-of-doors in my old age, when I have wound myself so closely around old Mrs. Flint that she is likely to leave me her property when she dies.”